Saturday, February 02, 2013
YAY! Major exercise is over!
I'm back home, after 2 weeks! I really miss home!
2 weeks of doing night shifts have past. It was tiring to say the least, especially in the wee hours of 4am onwards.
I believe that it has built me up to be more responsible, as well as bring out the best and worst in my platoon.
Sleep deprivation truly is scary i tell you, it makes one irritable, crazy, angsty, confused and downright hilarious.
My typical day goes like this:
Light.
There was light, brilliantly flickering, pulsing onto my closed eyelids.
I hadn't worn my spectacles to sleep, everything was a blur.
I woke up as the rays stream through the foliage behind my company line.
As a zephyr tickles the land, the leaves rustled in the warm evening air.
I stare out through the window beside my bed and was mesmerized by the golden shimmering sea of leaves and light, like hundreds of flickering torches.
I then looked away from the window and saw a singular flickering torch, like someone beaming a Morse code to me.
It was a platoon mate trying to wake me up with his flashlight.
Sometimes I wake up to the sound of rain.
I stare at the crystal raindrops fall, while the wind whirls the clouds into a pirouette and the evening sun dresses them in costumes of pink and purple gossamer.
I also stared in horror at my shorts I've hung out to dry, as it gets pelted by globules of water.
Hastily, the shorts were rescued, half wet.
I sit on my bed, half-dazed.
My tongue feels like sandpaper, so I groped about for my bottle of water.
The water quenches the thirst and my tongue is revitalised. It rapidly dances along the rows of teeth.
Then, disgust. The water tastes like pool water. Swimming pool water. Because I realised I haven't washed my bottle for quite a while..
The sheets on my bed are crumpled and creased. So are my half-wet shorts.
I get up, usually at 5 to 6pm, later if I had a tiring night.
I wake my friends up because it is dinner time. We usually eat noodles. But we get sick of instant noodles quite easily, so we went to the cookhouse.
By 7pm, we return and laze around for quite a bit till 10 where we begin to get dressed in our long fall uniforms, jokey cap, shin length socks and boots.
We board the tonner (the army 5-tonne truck) at 10.45pm below our coy line and begin our journey to Kranji camp.
I like to sit just right behind the driver's cockpit, because it allows me to see the surroundings and feel the wind.
I feel my platoon mates playfully squeeze me into the corner.
The tonner starts up and I cough and splutter just like its engine because of the noxious fumes it releases.
We chat and laugh as the tonner grinds its gears and jerk into movement.
Sometimes, I will stare out of the tonner just to have the wind weave through my hair, only realising too late that the wind also contains high levels of dust. (why are the colour of street lighting in Singapore so yellow?)
As we approach a tree lined expressway, I can smell the damp earth and lush greenery, a moist and comforting kind of smell but as we approach the busy roads, the acrid burnt rubber smell fills the vehicle like a fart wafting in an air-conditioned room.
A sudden jerk and we know that we've reached the camp entrance.
A another jerk, now its time for us to alight!
We change shifts with those who have done the morning's and Hi-Five each other, as we take our seat at the helpdesk as commanders go about planning their strategies for a glorified version of Risk.
Help me login to my account
Why can't I get my email to work
I think my phone line keeps getting cut
May I print this document
I want to transfer this file to... the
What did the traffic light say to the car
Why does this program keep crashing
Help me set up some benches and chairs
Have a biscuit, have some drinks
Don't need to be so stress one...
My projector cannot detect...
My computer is very laggy
Is the server up?
How come I haven't receive updates..
How do I copy and paste...
: these are some request we fulfill. So you can see that my job is actually quite relaxed as compared to those in the infantry :)
I consider it a blessing sometimes.
We take a supper break at 12am, then continue our shifts.
Without knowing, the Sun beams down upon us and its time to return back to camp. A tonner arrives to pick us up.
We see the morning shift and smile as we pass down our responsibilities to them and moved off in a cloud of acrid rubber smoke.
Hello Mister Bed, its nice to lay down on you once more! And I drift off into slumber till evening once more...
signing off.
Call Of The Wild at 5:22 PM