Life is like a roller coaster. Just hold on tight when it's going down.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

13 Jan 2013 - BMT

BMT

So I have crazily decided to revive this dead blog and I have no idea why. Perhaps, I fear that one day, my memory would fail me and I would forget some of the more significant events in my life. Maybe that's why I have decided to revive this blog, to keep a diary. So that one day, I might come back and read this, and laugh at myself. I didnt want to forget the significant people or events that have made an impact on my life. Perhaps, this might serve as an inspiration to others. Who knows? HAHA.

Just to make up for the long stretch that I have not been blogging, I am going to make it up and talk about the past significant events.

So I enlisted into NS on the faithful day of 9 May 2012. Cleanly shaven( MY HAIR T.T) and with pretty bad feelings. I have heard a lot of stories of BMT and I have also heard the rumours that I was going to be enlisting into 5th Company, which was the toughest that existed in my batch. I still remembered the awkward feeling of looking at everyone around me, mostly shaven, looking just as down as I was. So when we walked towards this empty space with everyone, the sergeants there started to set the tone.

"OI, TUCK IN YOUR SHIRT!" To that, I just rolled my eyes and did as I was told. Before everything went on, they suddenly announced that one of us might be entering into 6th Company. My hopes went up only to have it go down when I saw my own registration slip. "Company: 5th" With that, I just resigned to fate.

Having been a NCC cadet once before, most of the things that were taught to us initially were pretty no-kick in a sense. However, when I was in NCC, I had worked myself up to the rank of a 1st SGT and an attach spec. Now, I was a recruit once again and I have to work myself back up again. The feeling of restarting felt like crap at that point of time.

Also, all the strangers around me that I had to work with for the next 8-9 weeks, and I hated talking to strangers. But I made my mind up before enlisting, I am going to try to be extrovert, just for this 1 year 10 months. Luckily, I already known 2 of my bunkmates(Shi Min, Jervin) before hand and I know a few more of my platoonmates. Icebreakers started everything off and self-intros were done. Sadly, I made a mistake by saying I was a dancer and as you know it, I was forced to half-perform and half-battle.

To make things slightly worse, I had a physically weak buddy. I was praying hard for someone better than me that I could rely on, but things don't always go your way huh? More times than not, I had to push my buddy along through a lot of tough times. (But yeah, he did help me in a few tight spots.) He improved tremendously, (all his own effort, no credit taken here like honestly) and went from the worst in IPPT to a silver. To that, I am proud of him (':

Everything was just pretty much the same everyday: learning discipline, army stuff and pushing our limits. It was during the tough trainings, that I found out about a knee issue that I have chose to ignore before I enlisted. And during BMT, it was giving me hell every single day. It got so bad that at one point, I couldnt even straighten my leg while doing sprints.

Thankfully, NS provides free medical services for NSFs, so I decided to gave it a check. Only to realise that I had 'runner's knee' or otherwise known as, Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome. The latter sounds much more serious though. I did an MRI scan at KTP hospital and the doctor explained my problem to me. According to him, I have been using my muscle groups of my leg, especially my left one, wrongly and it led to an uneven balance of muscles. This caused my kneecap to misalign to balance the muscle groups, resulting in pain. In short, muscular problem leading to skeletal problem. This caused me to fail my FFI, forfeiting my chance to enter command school. ( I only known that towards the end)

I went back to the MO and they gave me some lame status - "Excuse High Kneel and Squatting" ( which wasnt that bad) Then, I went for the craziest part of BMT.

As I am not allowed to post too much about army, I am only going to just summarise it with a little bit of thought.

If you didnt know, in field camp, that's when your BMT sergeants would go CRAZY and start tekan-ing you. I did so much crazy shit and punishment. Throughout all that, I kept asking myself, "I was a civillian a few months ago, WHY THE HECK am I going through this crap?" Then, it went from missing my bunk to missing my home to missing my friends and family. Honestly, I teared a little. It sucked basically, but hey, I am alive and typing this right now, so yeah. What doesn't kill you, will make you stronger. When field camp was finally over, I went back home with a sense of pride. Something that I have not felt in awhile. Perhaps it was the fact that I hated insects and becoming dirty. I was too much of a hygenic freak. Perhaps it was because I thought I couldnt survive it, but I did and I felt a great sense of accomplishment. And to that, I say "phew"

Oh, and I did my first dance performance on stage! Wasn't much, just a take-turn-to-solo kind of performance, so yeah... But nerve wrecking nonetheless. This was one of the rare parts of BMT that was relaxing.

Then came the 24km route march, which was a lot more than that. And I am not saying because it felt like it. IT WAS. We had a warm up 2km and a 'cool down' few km march. With a heavy field pack, ILBV and rifle. Walking with Joshua ( A super funny and crazy guy, who played ball) was the only comfort I could take away from it. We chit-chatted about basketball and our own lives in our respective schools. I learned a few stuff of basketball myself from him during the march, suprisingly. Like how to keep calm during competition.

When it finally ended, we were all set for our POP. The parade was just excruciating for someone who couldnt wait to pass out of this hellhole. When the emcee went, "ladies and gentlemen", I literally felt like my heart was going to stop. As our jockey caps flew into the sky, I felt all the stress and burden on my shoulders lifted.

On a sidenote, I didn't get confined over weekends throughout the entire BMT. (Almost did, but didnt happen.) *achievement unlocked* :D

To my Platoon 1 mates, we went through all the craziest shit that I don't think anyone else would get to. Perhaps we weren't the most bonded group that might exist, but I know one thing, this is something that no one can take away from us. Going through all the "SIBEI FIERCE" crap. To my section 2 mates, thank you for tolerating my never-ending rants and helping out throughout the entire BMT phase.

Rajat. Lewis. Gucci. Orson. Suphasak. Arvin. Kok Shin(my buddy). Shi Min. Jervin. Shayne. Joshua. Rui Jie. Nicholas. Ariff. Kian Hao. I wouldnt have done it with anyone else.

It was a crazy 9 weeks, and I am not going to say I want to go through it again. But it did many things for me: it made me grow up and it made me learn to appreciate the little little things that I didnt use to appreciate.

So if anything, appreciate what you have around you, before it's taken away from you. Life is not going to give you too many chances.

-Signing off-

I'm still breathing;
8:14 PM