I finally had a glimpse of what civilian life truly is for the past one week after brushing through the public crowd in many occasions despite last week, being the week that kick starts months of hell outfield training and really hectic schedules. Hahah, the honour of being awarded my first 3 days ATT C granted me the opportunity to be sheltered from the menace of army from Sunday to Wednesday, as I enjoyed games of DOTA as well as catching a few matches of the well-disappointed World Cup. After booking into camp on Tuesday night, hoping to relish the life of a civilian during the weekends, I moved into my new bunk at Section 1 and the transition is still pretty smooth-sailing with the help of my new section mates and its really gratifying. The next day was SOC, which i skipped, as well as section fire movement trainings which was still quite intriguing and less demanding so far.
Then thursday was a physiotherapy session at SAFTI MI which means book out again and a sneak back into civilian world for a few hours, catching some world cup news as well as salivating some good food at Jurong Point. That night, we had our maiden entry into the Enlistee Mess and played some table soccer before heading back to bunk to rest while reading 8days magazine. Friday night was our first NIGHTS OUT! as we booked out early, in Civilian Clothes, had lunch at Jurong Point with mates before heading to SAFRA to watch Germany VS Serbia, as well as a game of DOTA at the lan center. Haha, and that's not all. Saturday now becomes part of army life as well, as we head down to padang in preparation for NDP, enjoying free flow of PIZZA HUT lunch and after we were released, i made my first step into Supper Club at Odeon Towers, though not for clubbing this time (i am staunchly anti-clubbing :D), but for some flea market apparently, before taking a bus back to my cousin's house to catch Netherlands VS Japan and some light mahjong.
Alright so lots of good stuffs that sums up last week and today is an off-in-lieu for Saturday's commitment it NDP, or rather i will prefer to phrase it as 'a good deployment of cheap labour by the SAF' since if you do your simple math, our allowance pay can be comparable or even lower than Bangladesh foreign workers and definitely, more professional, presentable and productive. That's what NSFs are really doing in the army- moving cones around and doing all forms of sai gang. Since Chinese workers have began to echo their concerns about their pathetically low pay, we perhaps should start our own protests not in Foxconn or Honda, but in our own camps. Haha, just kidding, i wouldn't wanna risk my future by entering DB.
Lesson learnt: There isn't democracy in army, though it claims to have. My sergeant said, "You think this is school ah- there isn't anything called appeal over here...."
Haha, I shall not continue to ramble about the army, at least for this post, and lets hope that the week ahead will be as great. I will be going to TTSH for my orthopaedic appointment at 2pm later, and hope everything goes smoothly as planned! :D