everything in
it's right place

brunei was a pretty interesting experience. the weather there is quite nice: moderately dry air and gentle breezes, so you don't quite sweat as much as singapore. it's cool (sometimes cold, even) at night, so sleeping is a generally pleasent experience. there's very few mozzies out in the field and though it's dark at night it's not the least bit scary (unlike certain parts of tekong). the terrain is really hilly, steep gradients with lacking map information and lots of hidden features. so navigation is a pain in the ass.

the training was as follows: 3 days of navigation, followed by a 3 day stay in a 'jungle village' of sorts and the grand finale of it all, which is a company level exercise comprising of 2 missions over 4 days. between each of these events is either an overnight sleep back in the bunk or some misc training to brush up on the technicalities.

we don't get much fresh water outfield; most of it is from rivers and streams. initially i was skeptical about drinking water from these sources (i mean, omg this is river water right?!), but it's rather pleasent after all. the water is cold and refreshing, tasting pretty much like mineral water (just what it is, isn't it? haha). nothing beats sitting by a stream after a long trek to freshen up and have a nice cool drink.

rediscovered my old love of playing with fire. setting aflame almost ANYTHING puts a smile on my face. must be some arsonistic tendencies. especially on a really cold night up mount biang (also the highest hill/mountain we climbed up during our 18 days). the temperature drops to around 20plus celcius, coupled together with the wind creates some reallllllly cold situations. my gpmg gunner and i formed a small fire of sorts and sat by the glowing embers, bodies all curled up (not together lah!) trying to keep ourselves warm. maybe that's what it's like to sleep by a fireplace? yummy warm feeling.

the stupid forest there gets so dark at night that i couldn't even manage to see my hand right in front of my face, let alone with the night vision goggles (no idea why i brought those along). anyway.

i guess in a certain sense the training really built me up, in terms of maturity. maturity to handle my platoon men, to handle situations, to handle myself. people always tend to take many things for granted, and only realise it when it's taken away from them. it's so easy to critic other people, but never yourself. and in the end there's really no one else to say sorry to but yourself. many people in my camp are jerks, but it doesn't mean i'm allowed to be one too, right? but at least i got a second chance this time (unlike many other times). it takes a lot of balls to fully admit that you're wrong. given my really short attention span, i hope i won't forget this.

really missed my parents, the sonnies and a few others. HI I"M BACK!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :)