woohooooooo.

tomorrow, and it's one year since ORD.

i remember the 'route march' to chew's, offloading of coins to the busker, the great feast we had at the hawker centre and the macs supper. ALL GERD.

and of course, before all that: the glimpse of my pink IC, photocopying and putting it up all over the battalion - and finally, walking out of the sungei gedong camp for the last time as an NSF.

gee, i felt a certain strong feeling in my heart. the emotion still lives strongly within me - and everyday when i wake up, i thank god that i have survived the living nightmare.

okay the last statement was kinda untrue, since i obviously don't do that everyday. although i used to wake up everyday in the military wondering why was i still there.

4th nov 2010, and my direct juniors will be the ones having this fantastic feeling. they even managed to save a day thanks to deepavali, so guess who's painting the town red now. anyway, it wasn't only fun for them yesterday.

the first-year soldiers came back to play waterpolo at nus, so i decided to make one of my rare cameo appearances. i'd been out of action for too long, and i notice myself getting so white that i remind myself of michael jackson, which isn't too good.

the waterpolo match was tiring, because i hadn't trained in damn long and also due to the lack of subs. it must be the exam period. to make matters worse, the chlorine was super powerful that night, so i ended up exhausted with blurry vision. nonetheless, it felt good to work out, and it got me feeling that i should go for training more often.

brandon drove, and we packed seven into that car of his. even though it was bigger than most, seven was still a bloody squeeze and my thighs ached. he's some driver from hell, and drove as if he was playing daytona.

well it's only exhilarating if you survived the ride, and thankfully we all did. to cap it off, he was blasting inane music from his mp3 at full volume. it was the true "bang van" experience, just short of open windows or an open roof. it would have been awesome.

still, i don't have a car so we make do. after an exciting journey from nus to serangoon, i watched as my juniors feasted on chomp chomp food. i must admit i was bloody tempted by the food, but the rational rider in me told me to back off until i fully recovered. plus, i didn't want to undo the good work i put in that night.

i had to be content with bandung milkcurd. it was imba enough.

yea so that was pretty much a great night out. i missed the sense of camaraderie of being in a team. their batch is quite a buaya batch, and the conversation topics over supper never failed to amuse me. i must say i learnt many new things about those jokers that night.

all gerd. though it wasn't my batch.

well we've come such a long way that we've all started to wander off in different directions. i think one of them said that they actually enjoy army life because there isn't much to study - and i thought that was rather admirable.

i never really appreciated army, but i guess it's hard to when you have a demanding boss who doesn't know jack. and troublesome men and sergeants. all the same, it's good that they can see the bright side. not many people do.

and as it's now 6 november, here's wishing all the soldiers of my batch a very happy birthday. when you get fed up with your civilian life, just remember the time when you had camo on your face. i think it's an effective remedy.

ORD LOH!