FiElD cAmP-- tHe AfTeRmAtH

the field camp that just passed marked yet another prominent point in the beginning of my journey in army... cant help thinking how true "when the going gets tough, the tough gets going" and how everything is in the mind... but i realised that perhaps i'm just not as strong as i tot myself to be..

anyway, the first day began with a fast march the moment we landed in tekong... imagine the hot sun beating down your backs, the full pack and sbo grinding away at your shoulder, your rifle making u feel all the more worse and not forgetting the heat permeating through your soles... it's horrible and all i want was to faint hahaha... but of course i din and amazingly we finished 4km in 34 mins, finally arriving at our camp site...

the rest of the day was spent navigating the whole of tekong and that was far worse than fast march... esp the stupid signal set that's nearly 4 times the weight of the full pack... the moment i carried it i felt like falling backwards...haha but i dun wanna show the guys in my grp that the girls here are weak... what the guys can do we can do it too! yea towards the end, i fell flat on my knees on the uneven ground with the heavy signals set... my knees were numbed with pain but i picked myself up and continued... however, when i lagged at the back cos of the weight and pain, my mdm tot i was not making an effort.... sighz...

the next day began with some attacking stuff but it's not so bad considering that i can sneak a wink when no one's looking haha... the thing i cant tolerate is my mdm's black face... and the point is that u did nothing to make her angry... we had navigation again but it was an adventure of our own altogether.. i must say that after finding our second checkpoint for hours we were on the verge of giving up... it's like every few hundred metres we'll lie dead on the grd and i was really worried that we cant make it... but this fear somehow brought out the optimism and the will to fight on in me... i was like singing to lighten the mood and offering to carry more than i can... but it's simply the surge of satisfaction each time we found our satisfaction that led us to the end... by the time we reached out dinner point, i felt like i was really going to die... luckily we arrived one hour before setting off again and i was quite revived after that.. carried the signal set for the rest of the night nav. and when we finally reached back to camp, i was really exhausted...

and the exhaustion dragged onto the next day and ruined it.. we're practising again but this time in a denser vegetation. i felt like throwing up and each step i took was an agonising one... finally i found myself lying on the ground gasping for breath, my lips trembling... then i fell out and everything seemed to go wrong... i felt better after resting and asked to join back but my mdm tot that i was just not that sick just now after all... there's simply this lack of trust in me that she has... am i supposed to hang on till i go delirious like my section mate? i really dunno wat to think...

after that, i had a fever exceeding 38 degrees and really had to fall out for the night activity... even as i am resting, my head spun and i cant sleep... horrible la... but what makes me feel worse is how my instructors just assumed that i did not go all the way...

haiya but since it's all over... whether i have pushed enuff, i'll never know... but next time, i must do better... :p is life always like that? field camp has made me grow wiser...