--- I ---

Yay! I got my first IPPT silver!

The scores:

Chin-ups: 11 (4 points)
Shuttle Run: 10.3 seconds (4 points)
Sit-ups: 42 (5 points)
Standing Broad Jump: 234cm (4 points)
2.4km Run: timing unsure, but in the silver category

I am shocked after I continue pulling my eighth, then ninth, then tenth, and finally eleventh chin-up. I attempt a twelve, but my arms tell me that they are unable to take it any further halfway through the pull.

For the Jump I stretch my hands all the way to the back, giving my body an extremely tight curve to garner all the momentum. I swing my hands back hard and leap forward. Doraemon, who is watching, comments that I have height but no distance. I don't dare to try distance and neglect height, or else I may suddenly crash-land on a <200cm mark.

Knowing the route of the 2.4km run, I mentally plan where I am going to run fast, and where I will slow down. The latter shall be done at uphill areas, which is more tiring to manage. I compensate back lost time on flat and downward-sloping ground.

I have been suffering from the effects of a cold the past week. I go under running water to blow out yellow or white sticky mucus several times a day. The last thing I realise is that the mucus turns watery during this run and less than hundred metres from the start point, it is threatening to spill out of my nose. Darn. Forgive me, this is disgusting, but I have no choice but to use my singlet to clean it, rather than let it dribble all over the place. I am probably one of the noisiest runners around, making snorting noises as I breathe in hard to pull the yucky substance back into the windpipe to delay its outpouring.

By the halfway point of the second round (the route is actually two rounds about the complex of 4 SAB) my windpipe seems to be jammed; I have to breathe through my mouth. I dislike inviting air from there, because the wind that blows through parches my throat, and makes running a discomfort. Most of the time I shut my mouth and breathe through my nose - which is less taxing.

So now I'm sprinting downhill towards the finishing, and I'm breathing through my mouth. Bloody murder. I feel like I'm one of those spastic patients making a feeble attempt to speak, but am unable to do so because something seems to clog up my oesophagus.

The chip distribution system is horrible. At the halfway point, in a flurry of anxiety, some of the "invigilators" drop their chips onto the ground. Or else it would be that a runner misses the chip while attempting to grab it, and it drops. Most of them never stop running; anyway the invigilators tell them to go on and forget about the chip.

At the end point, there is equal confusion. At the eleventh hour Sergeant Zhi Peng takes over the distribution of the number tags from Sergeant Errol. So late it is that he cannot extract the chips - which are kept together by a piece of comms cord - in time for the first runner to come in. When I cut through the finishing line, I wonder, where are the number chips? Then I hear Sergeant Zhi Peng calling me over to take a chip.

Today's test was nearly disqualified over the situation. Some people didn't get their number chips. Thankfully the neutral officer is "kaki lang" (own people), and he closed one eye.

I feel that we should have been divided into clusters to run, which we did in the previous trial test. There are close to fifty of us running in one shot, making crowd control difficult, particularly at the finishing point. When one or two people return, it is still okay, they can be marshalled through the finishing cones. Now, when one cluster-fuck of people return, the attendants at the end line are faced with the problem of crowd-management. Number tags can't be efficiently handed out either.

Then again, muses Colin Yeo from Platoon One (darn, I'm sounding like a reporter, but this is what he actually told me), why do they give us the number tag for? I don't see it being used throughout the test, not even during the 2.4km run. So why do we wear the stupid yellow thing? To make us look like professional athletes? Again, from Colin: they could have had someone write down the numbers on the tag as the runners run past the finishing line, as a confirmation to the submission of number chips thereafter.

--- II ---

It's difficult being the oddball wretch in the company, whose interests are almost totally different from the others.

Perhaps that is why I usually find it difficult to engage in long conversations with the others - I can't pull a topic out naturally. In fact, I hardly have anything to talk about. Other people engage in talk about hand-held games, computer games, Play Station 2, comics, soccer - oh, the list goes on and on. If I join in a conversation, it usually means that I "eavesdrop" - I am at the corner taking in whatever they say without the slightest notion of what is going on, and hardly open my mouth to add to anything because I don't have the topic at hand.

Perhaps that is why sometimes I prefer to set myself to work rather than stay around and mingle and relax with the others, because I'd get perfectly bored. What the Chancellor told me in the past is accurate: while working one tends to concentrate intently on his task and not think of other things, particularly unhappy thoughts.

Every Monday when I go back to camp, I often feel I'm going have to ditch my favourite music and hear nothing about it for one week, until Friday night, when I book out again. Even English oldies are not welcomed in the bunk; once I tuned the radio to 90.5FM; it invited howls of protest. The only one time I managed to listen to 92.4FM was when the whole company was given a nights-off, and the bunk was left with two of my close friends who didn't really bother what frequency I was tuned to. I don't really like the programming in 92.4FM - it plays too much Baroque and Classical Music, and hardly a lot from the Romantic and Modern 20th Century periods. Not very adventurous and varied. Still, it's a welcome from pop songs. 93.3FM is the most tuned-to station, followed by 98.7FM. The former plays songs that sound so similar to one another that you might think you were listening to an extended variation all day long. Also I chastise it for playing hit favourites repeatedly, like Joi Chua's "Sunrise" which is becoming a bloody murder weapon, being played once almost every day. I'm also pissed that "Persian Cat" by S.H.E. is not known to be derived from Albert Ketebely's (I wonder if my spelling is correct) "In a Persian Market", from the beggars' theme. The Chinese and Taiwanese have a penchant for picking every shit theme the west plays, giving them new lyrics, and then throwing them to the public to become hits. It's very dirty.

98.7FM, on the other hand, plays another shit load of English music - those kinds of crappy disco remixes, or dance songs that you'd expect to hear at clubs. Well I don’t go clubbing, anyway I hate being in some half-dark dingy place with cigarette smoke all around and loud music blaring from the loudspeakers overhead. Experience derives from being at Angel's Reborn, and I am certainly put off by that and I will never go to another nightclub, unless being forced to.

Perhaps this week I shall bring a Discman in, if I can get my copy of Joshua Bell playing Sibelius' Violin Concerto.

--- III---

Jobs opportunities for Armoured Pioneers after ORD:

Toilet cleaner (area-cleaning allocation: toilets)

Plumber (our CSM says he might teach us toilet cleaners how to fix toilets and sinks in the event we find something not working when we go to clean the toilet each day)

Road sweeper

Construction worker

Lumberjack (heard from the RSM that we're going to cut down some trees in our unit compound soon . . .)

Maria (you know . . . that type of Maria)

Car-cleaner (at the car parks of shopping centres, includes cleaning the interiors of vehicles)

Food-taster, Makansutra style (we've eaten enough SFI food to tell what is poor cooking and bad mixture of dishes - not to mention poor food quantity - hear that, it's also quantity, besides quality - management)

Logistics personnel, or to put it simply, store men (thanks to doing lots of stores around the company line)

Mover (house, goods etc)

Security guard (training from signing extras and performing regimental duties in camp)

Ushers (from performing marshalling duties)

PE teacher (we're fitness freaks in the army; we'll probably organise large-scale runs around the perimeter of the school every two days. We'll also conduct 5BX every morning after flag-raising)

Discipline master (we've been tekan-ed enough to know how to tekan others. "Knock it down" and "wake up to your idea" will be memories in school vocabulary)

Mechanic (five days of helping to service and maintain the tanks)

Forest ranger with National Parks Board (the love of the outfield being cultivated through participating in numerous exercises and missions in the Great Outdoors)

Booby-trapper

Electrician

Acrobat (from climbing all over the tank to arrange and secure the stores in place within ten minutes)