Waiting game

"Fuck!"

Trust me to come out with this word right? That's the word i'll use to sum up the whole week. A week whereby some of us deemed it as the slackest week among the 8 weeks stay in OCS. But for me, it's a week of disappointment, soreness, body aches, fatigue and emptiness.

Somehow, i hurled that f-word out, right in front of my instructor during my SOC test on Wednesday. And guess what? I failed my SOC due to my low rope station. I was so pissed of with myself when i'm not able to do a proper loop after 3 tries, and i had to surrender my number tag to my instructor, who's the supervising officer at the station.

I was so disappointed that i kept mute for the rest of the day after the SOC. I went back to try re-doing the low rope station again, after the whole wing headed back for shower and dinner. Without much difficulty, i managed to clear it with a single loop and did it for couple of times. That's when i asked myself why am i so upset. Does result matters so much to me now? No doubt SOC is a veto factor to remain in OCS, but somehow i felt i'm setting alot of expectations and demanded alot more from myself.

Perhaps too used being not bothered by results and such previously, things came my way without much difficulties and sometimes unexpectedly. But recently, starting from my failure of Air-Grading over at Tamworth, things are no longer the same. The more i want something, the more i won't be able to achieve it. And maybe i'm not someone who accepts failure easily, i get emotionally down when i failed. Not to the extreme extend whereby i go bonkers or anything to do with violence, i just felt like i'm going back to my old self; a walking zombie.

Trainings for me have also been picking up quite alot lately. Additional trainings for those who have yet to achieve Gold for IPPT, whereby those already done so get to sleep and do whatever they deemed fit. Sprinting around tracks for 5km or so, just the day before our SOC test, makes one wonder if we are trained to be superman.

Not forgetting the long punishment on Wednesday night, for the lack of discipline as explained by the instructor.

The punishment breaks down to something like this in sequential order:
1) 3 changing parade from admin attire to long 4, long 4 to civilian and back to long 4 again, each with a time frame of 3 minutes.
2) Followed by falling in FBO (Full Battle Order) in 2 minutes.
3) 2 minutes to get 2 full water bottle filled up.
4) Placing 2 water bottles, fieldpack, helmet and SBO separately at 4 corners of the parade square, with another time frame of 3 minutes again.
5) 2 minutes to gather all the stuff back.
6) Drink up 1 full water bottle of 1 litre and 3 of my platoon mates puked up. Despite sounding out that they are too full to continue, the instructor told them to continue drinking and they can just puke on the parade square if they need to, which they did.
7) Marched around the whole parade square with FBO for 30 minutes.
8) 10 minutes to wash up and lights out with zero movements.

All and all, the punishment lasted almost 1hr 40minutes. Whether it's legal or not, whether if there's any safety breach or not and whether it's considered tough punishment or not, you shall be the judge.

I'm being quieter lately and i hate to think now. Going through motions just like what our instructors like to label us, is exactly what i'm doing now. Isolating myself away from the crowd, listening to emo punk rock, not talking much, black and white, giving and showing hack care attitude and use of excessive vulgarities are probably what you will expect from the dead man walking; Jeri.

I realised my blog posts tends to be rather dull, with tonnes of words and zero picture/photo. So i reckon i should add some pictures here and there, hopefully able to just lighten up the sullen mood. So here you go, self portrait of me in the pearly white No.1 ceremonial uniform. Being one of the ushers for the upcoming commissioning parade on the 10th of June, i'm issued the uniform and first task in hand; get it clean up and well-ironed.

In case you guys forget due to busy working around the clock or too preoccupied with army just like me, here's a gentle reminder that this coming Sunday is Mother's Day. My sister brought back home a cake this morning, for an early Mother's Day short celebration. No idea what you call it, but it's basically chocolate cream cake with bananas.

I wanted to spend time alone for some shopping today. But it started raining in the noon and i got lazy. That's when i procrastinate yet again. So yet again i stared at my laptop the whole day, downloading movies and games. To think about it, i'm simply not making full use of my time. But nevertheless, doing what i like is all that it matters ain't it. Who cares if it's constructive or not. Living by itself is not a choice for a start.

And i've finally managed to change the song for my blog. Probably too noisy for some, but once again, the lyrics captivated me. Alright, that's all i have for now, shall leave you guys with the song and head for my cold dinner.

Till then.