January 11, 2005 (Day 4)

Oh, the pointlessness of it all.

Yup, that basically summed up the day for me. A damned tiring CCBT (Close Combat Physical Training) warmup, where I failed spectacularly at the pushups before having the company PC deride me for being too weak to even handle the warmup started the day.

Well.......that sucked.

What sucked even more was having to go to the firing range to watch the sergeants firing M16 rounds at watermelons to show its capability, as if I didn't already know from my NCC days. Well, perhaps it's only fair the non-NCC guys got to take a look, but it's no joke when you have to walk aimlessly around while you're suffering from "recruit's fatigue", or the fatigue recruits usually suffer after the first few days of camp. The really sucky part was, I had to squeeze with the while platoon into what of those all-purpose military trucks they call 'tonners', for the two-way trip between barracks and the range.

Let's just say that being squeezed like sardine with 49 other stinking crumb balss into one tonner with a maniacal driver at the wheel on a rocky road is, again, no joke.

And to complete the totally pointless day, I had to go for a meaningless ceremony where the rifles are symbolically handed over to the recruit's safekeeping. Seriously pointless, boring, and even cramp-inducing. I almost died of migraine from wearing the jockey cap for too long. All the things they said about defending the country......blah. Look at it this way. I never asked to be born. I sure didn't ask to be born in Singapore, where I have no choice but to suffer an indignity I didn't care for in the first place. Well. Now the only way this godforsaken place is going to earn any respect from me, is if they cut down on the nationalistic bullshit. It's about time they realised people like me, however rare, don't buy such bullshit.

Alright, I'm done ranting pointlessly for now. Now for the meaningful part. After all the shit of today, I called back to my family, and well, at least this time I smiled to hear their voices. It seemed like I was losing any sense of kinship to them, and if there was one good thing about being stuck in this hellhole, it was that it built up the meaningful relationships a lot more than you would think. And speaking of which........I called N after that.

And it's official. N has an impact on me others don't have.

I broke into tears again when I heard her voice, even though I managed to keep calm and hear about her last 4 days. I finally started tearing towards the end of our conversation, although I have no diea whether she picked up on it or not. So.......all I can say is, I didn't break down on the first day in Tkeong when I talked to N because I was a wimp...........because if I would break down everytimg I hear from her.....,

It means N means much more to me than anyone else in this world.

Bah. Well, anyway I got around to calling ST afterwards, and I got almost the same kind of talk I got from AL. Hmm. Someone should check whether they are long-lost twins or something, since they are both so similar in personality and all.

Perhaps tomorrow night, I would call Jessa, and ask her what is it about military life she liked, since I know what it meant now :p Hmm. I should ask her to pass a message to NeNe too. Alright, that's what I'll do.

Anyway, it's late. Goodnight all.