This whole week. Being plagued by thoughts of Maria seriously isn't fun. What the heck. Think about her when bandaging wounds, when immobilising fractures, even when doing CPR. How dumb can that get? And worse still, not all thoughts are wholesome. Like, yeah. Well. What some guys always think of. Bleah.

Like with all my thoughts I could almost write her a letter. With what I'm thinking about. How much I miss her. And how much I wanna be there for her, to support her. But what the heck, I'm seriously at the end of my tether with my self-imposed 3 year bond. For goodness sake she's only 16. Pull yourself together Joel, and get a life. What can you do now? Like take her out every day? Call her every night? A private's pay ain't enough, for goodness sake.

And well, yes. It's a big blardy distraction to me. No matter how much I like her. Well. God is still no. 1 priority, not a 16 year old girl! so why think so much of her and shut God out? Let God do the work. Whatever you do now is also useless. Still got 3 years, boyo.

But seriously even in camp I still miss her. Her blurness. Her innocence. All very cute to moi. That's why... Eek. It's killing me... Help...

OK, lemme detail the stuff that I've been through... Thursday, Teo Chee Hean decided to visit our camp. So each platoon had to put up a little something for him to see. From my platoon, one whole section was selected. To do I.V. One lucky guy would actually get poked while the rest of us would sit around and pretend to be prepared to get poked. Wayang lah. Even our course commander said so. Referred to the whole thing as "Schollywood", or "School Hollywood". Ah well. My section wasn't selected, but one guy from that section had to go for a scholarship interview so he asked me to replace him. What fun! We had Friday night off because of the wayang-ing, lolz. Dashed out to Northpoint and bought Amy's birthday present and some greeting cards. Addressed to people like Christina & my cute lil maid cos both their midyears coming soon. And I treat them like my close friends.

Oh yes. Friday reported sick. Now excused uniform for 7 days. Till 29th April. Why? A fungal infection. Down there. Yes. THERE... Chao ji wu di disgusting and itchy...

Spent 20 bucks, now I'm feeling broke again... Pay day's only 17 days later, hoping for the increment to come in... 450 a month's much much better than 350 a month...

Oh boy. Labour Day's next week. LONG WEEKEND! Woohoo... And dreaded I.V.'s on Monday... ARGH. Meanwhile I'll just wait for the NUS Chem Engineering letter to come... I'm confident I'll get into there. With faith. And to reject NTU's offer.

Ack.

Sheesh. 2nd round of injections and 1 guy actually got so freaked out, he actually was hyperventilating away! Poor guy.

I've got 2 more war wounds. And one of them's already developing a bruise. Darn.

Faith Team's now on for the 2nd of May. Hopefully got another night off next Wednesday for practice! Thanks God... He's already been so gracious in so many ways...

Gotta rush some stuff at home... Darn...

Talking about wind chasers, I do suppose I'm having a problem chasing after stuff which are temporal in nature. So this sucks. I'm still constantly reminding myself not to fall into such traps of Satan's, but the lure gets greater each day. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. ARGH. Like it does work somehow, but the same old feeling comes back again. 2 more years and I'll be out of this establishment called the Army, and maybe that's when I'll find some breathing space.

I dread going back in tonight. Wednesday, the second round of IV. I don't despair when I think of jabbing him, cos I'm quite confident of applying IV. What I fear is HIM jabbing me. Which is why I'm wondering why did I get posted to be a combat medic when doing some good ol' chiong sua as a rifleman seems much much better? Just that the camp is 4 SIR at Lim Chu Kang, rather far from home.

Meanwhile. I still wait. And wait. And wait. Some may say this is dumb, but I shall wait. Like help. This is getting a lil out of hand and a lil crazy for me. Why so? Darn.

To those having midyears soon, all the best. And don't forget to study! The most important thing to study is still the Bible, though.

For NUS interview at 10am. Left at 9am, so shiok. I wanna get future Saturday off passes! Lolz. Went for the Scholars' Programme interview, found it to be a relative breeze through.

Last Thursday was the dreaded IV, now got 2 holes, 1 on my right arm and 1 on my left arm... Darned buddy of mine managed to miss my vein! And my sergeant says he would have gotten it through... OUCH.

Oh yes, got another letter, been accepted to study Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NTU! So happy. Waiting for my Chem Engineering at NUS to come... And together whack with the Scholars' Programme, sure damn happy one sia. Lolz.

All by God's grace. Not my effort.

This week ending with a high morale.

OK... First Wednesday night off from camp... It's like a weekly thingy, every Wednesday night... Hehe... Hopefully more of it to come. Can touch my comp more... And more in the civilian world! Rather than in the dreaded camp...

Oh yes. I can't go for church camp. Depressing. Medic course ends only on 24th June. Sigh!

Let's say today was a blast. Just that it was marred by some unhappy incident between 2 good friends of mine which I shall choose not to elaborate on, what the heck man... Guess I shall have to pray for them more. Why should this happen, I really dunno. How it happened, I have no wish to find out, best kept between both of them. Ah well I hope it soon works out well. Maybe I'll start writing about it in my private blog, lolz. If I choose to get one...

Faith team is on for next Sunday. And I'm gonna play this time. Unless kena guard duty, of course. But anything for the glory of God. Not for myself.

Sheesh! 2 years to go. To ORD...

I'm gonna gripe again, book in by 2300hrs tonight. Thank God I was allowed to come out for Good Friday. My section's first 7 beds were called for guard duty, and I'm bed no 8! Whew! By the grace of God I still made it for today's rehearsal hence I can drum for tomorrow's Youth Easter programme. Though I'm feeling much older than a youth already, what the heck.

I just find army life dumb. Whatever. Crap. All the adminstration sucks. But well, in private enterprises it's just about the same, especially when you ain't at the top, so no choice, lan lan suck thumb lor...

Gotta pack up and go for tonight's Good Friday service. I hate this booking in thingy though. Damn.

Week 1 of medic course. Combat medic, so extra combat vocation pay of $100 a month. Woohoo. But other than that, and the super duper slack discipline, what the heck, actually it ain't such a nice place to be after all.

The admin there sucks big time. Like well, today we book out at 6pm for Good Friday, then we MUST be back in by 2300 tomorrow night, since they've indented breakfast for us at the cookhouse on Saturday! And seriously speaking, the food at the cookhouse isn't that appetising either. Tekong's food is 10 times better. Plus, by not indenting meals, the SAF can save money, what the heck are they doing?! Furthermore we have lessons on Saturday, super dumb! While others enjoy long weekends, who can concentrate man? I'm just griping, and griping, and griping... Moreover we only get to bookout at like 1pm on Saturday... Obviously dumb... The timetable sucks and so does the people who plan it, which is what really pisses me off.

Seriously speaking the SAF is wasting its time and resources on such stuff. And it's the HQ of Medical Corps too. Whoa. 1-star general, chief medical officer around... Even so, it is like crap... to spend time teaching us biological stuff like the nervous system and all the technical sounding terms, what good does it have for us? Waste time only... Better off sleeping, like what I did. Thankfully never kena caught, lolz.

It's super crappy. And no handphones to be used during office hours. Neither is sleeping on bed allowed, but sleeping on floor is. How dumb.

CRAP.

And I have to tearfully relinquish civilian life again. My job is out there for me, to train to be a medic, a 10 week course at Nee Soon Camp. Though I'll never get the bars on my shoulder... Or even get to command platoons around, my job is there. And I won't earn as much as others, too. Like Ivan, Weixiong, Jit, Aziz, all going to OCS the same time I make my way to Nee Soon tomorrow. Ah well. On the battlefield I'll be plucking bullets out of their bums, so they'll have to respect me as well! Ho ho ho... I'm responsible for just about everyone's life too. Heard that it'squite a slack vocation... Hopefully... Crazy man. I wanna lose more weight but at the same time I wanna go into a slack vocation. How can, man?

At least it ain't no Tekong no more. Poor Hansel, Ruhan, Hongda... Sigh! Unless they post me back to that island after I complete my Red Cross training... Lolz.

Nee Soon. One direct bus 169 down to Sembawang Camp. At least might get to go down see Jiayang, lol. Darn Naval Divers...

And it's easier to go down to church too. Whew. Much better than Sungei Gedong, where Junwei's headed... Armour infantry! Wahahaha...

So well, I'm rather thankful for my posting... So far. Though I dread the thought of lugging everything over, but it beats taking the fastcraft back to Tekong and starting training in SISPEC. Oh yeah.

Somehow I feel I'm starting to get bullied by Sarah Wong aka Huang Jia... Is it because I bully her younger sister aka Huang Xin too much? Damn. Maybe I owe her something in my past life... Hahaha...

Ok...

Name: YONG KAH JIN, JOEL

Comd SAF BMTC congratulates you for your successful completion of the BMT.

Your Posting Order is listed below:

1. You are posted to HQ MC.
2. Your vocation is COMBAT MEDIC.
3. Your are to report to: 05/04/2004 at 0800 hrs.
to Nee Soon Camp, BLK 701, RM #02-19.
to Chief Clerk - 64505551 in smart no.4 uniform (Except those assigned to Police Force/SCDF).
4. Special Instruction: You are required to bring along your duffle bag / field pack complete with the SAF issued items given during BMT. You are expected to stay in.

At least Nee Soon's not that far from my house...MAybe 45 min away by bus. Moreover I can hop down to the MRT station at Khatib and from there down to Toa Payoh, hop onto 28, and I'll get to church in a jiffy. Great for Saturday afternoons, I suppose. Well hopefully after this medic training I'll be posted to a slacker camp *hehe!* like maybe back to Tekong, hahaha... A medic's job, I think, is more like an 8-5 job...

Hopefully. Sigh! No NSPI...

Today is April Fools' Day... :o And I have to be reminded that Jiayang's in Sembawang Camp starting his BMT... For his NDU training. While Jiayu's in Hendon Camp going to pass out and start training to be a commando officially. And what am I doing? Stoning at home. Basically doing nothing till my next posting which is on the 5th of April.

Sometimes I thank God that I'm not that physically endowed to be among the elites. My goodness that training is super siong and I'm too pampered by my parents, what the heck... Even then, BMT is never supposed to be easy. Neither is training in the units. However, after completing training and doing what you've been trained to, that's when everything gets super slack. Unless you're in OCS, SISPEC or Guards of course. And I won't be posted there, I can confidently say so, cos I'm still unable to pass my IPPT. DAMN!~ :oops:

:!: Want to talk to Jiayang also cannot, cos NDU doesn't allow handphones in Sembawang Camp. Only payphones... So can't sms him, can't talk nonsense, especially his time that precious... :idea: Maybe I'll just steal his handphone that's lying around in his house collecting dust, trade it in, and get a new phone for that lil maid of mine? At a reduced price some more. Then can sms her, and my phone bill won't be that high... Especially in Tekong was calling her ah... To do this do that, make sure the place is clean... And Christina's already described her as having an "obsessive cleaning syndrome". Well done! I could consider giving pay rise liao, no need to wait till O Levels over... Supermaid sia!~ Hur hur hur.

1 more week to Easter. Hopefully my new unit'll let me out from Friday to Sunday. Poor bugger, he's out on Thursday night but has to be in by Saturday afternoon! Sigh. Divers ah...

Meanwhile, gotta go for P & P practice later. My hands are itching badly.

Cheers

Joel :?: