In about 24hours time i will be on the plane to taiwan. its not just another trip overseas where i can relax and play but this is a unique one. i will be holding weapon in taiwan and the challenging terrain awaits me for our exercise longstride. we have to navigate our way towards the checkpoints and logpoints inbetween to reach our final objective. we will be despatch in a grp of 4s and uncontrolled navigation for 3d2n.

i still cant believe that im going for taiwan for training till now. as far as i noe, many of my mates aren't looking forward to it. what about me then? i too dun want to go there for training. this is the last training before i get my three stripes. the briefing just made me even more demoralised. i tot they would motivate us but it was otherwise.

the numbers are out. 136 from two company are going to units like 1,5 and 6 SIR. as i said there will be less intake for tekong specs. currently im not so bothered to where im going to be posted to. i cant do much nothing about the posting so im just leaving my posting to fate.

yesterday nite was a hell of a nite for us. the four of us didnt slp till it was about 3am. we talked about ghost stories and even tried making ourselves subconscious. during that state, our brain were shut-off from oxygen and we had no control of our body movement. at first i was freaked out when my friend first tried it. he mumbled something and then collapsed. the three of us had to hold him till he was back on again. but during the 3-5 secs when he was subconscious, he dreamt that he was back in his secondary sch and there were a song. my take on this is that when ur subconscious, u will dream of ur past and those were the moments that are significant to you. from the moment he was back on, he kinda stoned awhile. it was funny after seeing one by one having different reactions. when it reached my turn, my friends told me that i was staring directly at one of them but actually i had entered into the subconscious state. i forgot completely what i dreamt or wat but i remembered when i was back, i also stoned. i was figuring who were the three figures that stood infront of me. then i realised it was my friends. took me sometime to register that somehow. hmm. something to think about now....

i guess im leaving for taiwan with a sinking feeling. for this i felt so strong.

im leaving on a jetplane. be back on 20th may. bon voyage.

Protect ~ 2:23 am

If im not wrong it rained here in mainland and we were lucky enuf that it was sunny hot at sentosa. The weather's was fine i am turning darker and darker as days being a soldier. not taking considerations with regards to today's outing to sentosa, im already a brownie. well everyone agreed to meet at 11am and as humans, we tend to have no sense of urgency instilled in us from the day we were born. And so i was the first thinking that i was late but i reached there on the dot. the rest turned up one by one and so the whole group was complete till it was about 1230. at least i got to eat my lunch at macds.

took the bus to sentosa and just as we were about to change to the island's bus, saw alan working there part time. what a small world. so we asked him about the go-kart thingy as well as directions in sentosa. as u noe, sentosa is ever-changing. what's there is gone and what's planned to be there is being constructed. we headed down to pahlawan beach and settled near some trees which canopy's was kind enuf to provide us the minimum shade that we were looking for. yesterday saw chiobus at orchard, today was no exception. its just sentosa and its the beach. there was aplenty there. sometimes i just feel that life's unfair. im not one of their friends or friend's frend. and when we shifted to siloso beach, can u imagine that my jaws were practically hanging downwards towards the sand? nah i was just kidding. there were so many gorgeous babes. talking about life's unfair, where am i heading to? i've lost the mood to court girls since god knows when but i believed it was long time ago. maybe during 1st yr poly?

there's so much feelings involved when courting a girl and my success rate probably have hit rock bottom 0%. firstly there's something that's holding me back. till now i cant expressed it in words but only i understand how am i feeling. its confusing for me. friends have been telling me how it was possible for me to go a step ahead with someone during my poly days and the-oh-so-confused-me didnt sound off anything to her at that point of time. if maybe i sounded off something i probably stand at least a decent chance. the problem is i never gif it a shot at all. i do haf feelings for that girl and as what i've said, im so confused with myself and the strong "feeling" that's holding me back was unbearable.

i need to overcome this one day....
when will it be?
life's unfair to me now...
no matter how positive i try to be, i still haf that wounded scar from the previous one.
letting it go was hard at the beginning, now its slowly drifting away....
being in national service has its blessings in a unique kind of way to me; and an aching heart-wrenching gutted feelings. its a double-edge sword.
at least during training, i am so shagged that i am not thinking about anything else.

the upcoming week is gonna be the shiong period. im having atp live shoot on monday. one day burnt at the range and i really mean it. preparations for 32km route march with river crossings on tues. i will be back in tekong on tues nite as we need to start our route march on the next morning. 32km of walking and the last few 8km or so is gonna be tough. drenched after doing our river crossing, we still have to complete the route march. back at company line on wed evening or so. high confidence course on thurs...and finally exercise grandslam 2 on fri-sat(eve). will be booking out on sat nite i guess. and during the exercise grandslam 2, i finally haf the chance to board the chinook. we are going to fly! a long week ahead and may god bless me with good health.

needa a gd slp now. meeting dan at westmall tmr around 11am. gonna do some last min shopping and then back to camp :(

Protect ~ 1:23 am

Flying off to taiwan in about 2 weeks from now. 3 weeks of endurance there i shall say and its going to be tough. the terrain there will be pretty much different from singapore's and i hate to be doing outfield training!! after taiwan i will haf another 3 more days in camp and i will pass out from my aslc training. Finally gonna be a 3rd sgt! and the next sought after vocation is to be a tekong specs. that's where i can train the recruits and beef them up a lil...hehz

its been training and endless training for the past few weeks. all i can say is that aslc training is much more fun than bslc. we learn new things and also learn fighting in build up area(fibua). clearing a room in normal hdb estate can be very tiring...gotta storm thru and do things fluidly. its all in the course of instantaneous action.

booked out on thurs evening at around 5 and i haven been resting my body enuf i guess. been getting frequent headaches. after booking out , i went home first before meeting peeps at paradiz centre to play billiard. after having fun, we called it a day and of coz i went home straight since i got nothing much to do there. woke up today and left home for orchard. this time with another grp of friends we shopped in town. the area was packed with ppl as its public hols and i have never seen so many gorgeous girls for quite a long time. u see ns makes u feel kinda deprived of many things. was in town for quite sometime and i was really that tired. ruzaini asked me to follow them to esplanade but i just gotta haf to reject him. i gotta rest.

heading to sentosa tmr with another grp of pals from bslc. kinda looking forward to it as many of us have not met for around 6weeks since we passed out from the course. there's like 8-10 ppl going tmr and we gonna bring the house down! its gonna be extremely fun i hope cheeseng will bring his camera tmr and take some shots. hopefully the weather is forgiving coz its been raining for the past few days...i dun want to chill on the beach tmr.

as for sun i gotta book in. hai...the feeling of booking in...it just sux completely. well it isnt just that, we still haf to wear our ROC clothes, i.e. the attire to be worn when we setting off from singapore to taiwan. we haf to wear pants and shirts(be it short/long sleeve) with leather shoes. damn it..i hate wearin those. i cant do anything about it...i still wanna buy more clothes...more berms...more pants..and some shoes...

excepts from conversation during interview....

sgt alan: faizal u are doing well and more or less i think u haf passed the course. u just haf to go thru the remaining training.

me: is it? that's gd...

sgt alan: from my experience, i think u can get a gold in ur ippt based on ur results from the current results and also ur soc timing.(i got a silver, 25pts and the only downside that i didnt get gold was my 2.4km timing of 10:12 ; to get gold is to run below 9:45) after this course wherever unit u go, try for gold alright?

me: in bmtc i sure will do my utmost best to get the gold sgt.

sgt alan: didnt i tell u that if u aim for bmtc then u will go unit and if u aim for unit then u will go bmtc?

me: oh oh ya im going to unit. sorry that i forget...

sgt alan: so i tink u just try ur best for ur ippt ok?

me: of course i will

sgt alan: and for performance wise, ur above average. i want u to keep on working hard and i remind u not to go thru motion. whether u hold any appointments or watsoever, i want u to be on the ball.

me: i will try sgt.

sgt alan: alright u may go up now. ask the next person the come in.

me: thanks sgt.

and so that was the conversation i had with my sec com during the interview. upon hearing that i was doing fine above average, i was fearing for my next vocation. i heard if ur gd enuf, u will go to unit and be the sec com. u will haf 6 men under u and u will lead them. i dun want to do that. i just wan to be a spec in tekong. im not asking much right?

Protect ~ 12:13 am