cpl bernard was so nice as to give us our photos collated from the entire length of our BMT. so i posted below some for your viewing pleasure. and hey if you left a comment on my tagboard i've replied below too.

when i look at the pics now it's damn shiok- like you've been there, done that. and it doesn't seem so awful like how it did at that time. but gosh some of it was fucking hell bad then.

try digging a trench for twelve hours straight with your PC breathing down your neck, your head spinning from the turn-out the night before. the stench of day-old sweat mingled with freshly-dug soil permeating the air around you but you don't give a shit because everyone smells like you too, going for a crap in the woods when you can't take it any longer. at that time you wonder how you could've done such an inanely stupid thing like actually volunteering to subject yourself to such duress. but when you think about it now it's one hell of an experience that i'm grateful i had the chance to go through. it just makes you that little bit more resilient.

after walking around in a dilemma for the past few weeks, i've bid farewell to the Army and crossed over to the Republic of Singapore Air Force as a Weapons Systems Officer(Air Defence Artillery). not pilot la huh sorry haha. but i do get to shoot them down, which is a mighty big thing in itself. moved from sierra to air wing on friday after a complex transfer procedure which i don't want to get started on. giving up Guards was a tough choice, not sure if i made the right decision. but i thought i ought to go for something i felt thoroughly passionate about, rather than just be motivated by prestige and the prospect of being the first female scholar in Guards. well perhaps there aren't any right or wrong decisions in life, it's just what you make of them.

anyway ADA is like army in the air force culture which is exactly what i've been looking for. damn siong from what i've heard- the pro term male cadets average 20-30 chinups by the time they commission. SOCs complete with sandbags in SBOs, chinup regimes and endurance runs! not forgetting trench digging and troop deployment 24/7! and of course field rations, E.C.'s Thai Noodle special which tastes exactly like what it looks, which is quite disconcerting especially since it's a squelchy mess. and my favorite dry dog butter-flavoured biscuits. oh and actually i've developed quite a fondness for those biscuits. i think i could eat them and be quite happy for the rest of my life. well basically WSO (ADA)s chiong suah, crap in the woods (my favourite) and do everything a typical Army soldier'd do. One thing, however, which I'm eternally grateful for: no Section Battle Drills. hahaha! we're not called the commandoes of the RSAF for nothing. the Green in the Blue! this is gonna be bloody fun man.

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passerby>> i applied for the saf merit scholarship for women after my As. BMT and OCS are prerequisites for the scholarship board to evaluate you, besides your Alvl results and the usual criteria. but if you're signing on as a regular then go to the SAF career centre at CMPB in depot rd and check out the vocations and services open to you. there're 2 intakes of women officer cadet course (WOCC) BMT a year- once in jan, and the other in aug. i think you can make it for the aug one if you wanna apply now or something. BMT is 10weeks of hel... errr no, heaven. haha! i'm not sure about the women specialists BMT though. it's in tekong unlike WOCC BMT where you go straight to OCS.

jon>> haha nope as i mentioned above i'm not going to Guards. i say this with a tinge of regret because i know i would've pushed myself and made it through. but after thinking a whole lot i decided to pursue my passion in air defence and so i joined RSAF. no looking back now! haha. anyway ADA is just like army so i guess that's what i really like heh. btw how are you? you take care too man.

ncc girl>> *read my reply to passerby above first, it might help a little too.* during BMT i had both male and female instructors. let's see. my platoon comdr (PC) was male, assistant PC female. section instructor-wise we had both males and females. all officers. so there was a pretty good mix la. and we got tekan-ed by both, so don't worry about not having the opportunity to Knock it Down Twenty! their attitudes towards female cadets are pretty much the same. but one thing i must say is that they were brilliant instructors. not the sort who tell you to go and eat shit and die and make all sorts of unreasonable requests. they're strict and all but they were inspirational and caring at the same time and i think those are the hallmarks of a truly good officer.

number of pushups huh. wow i like this question. haha apparently there's a SAF directive that says that recruits/cadets cannot be made to do more than 20 pushups within a 10min timeframe or something like that. well anyway that's a non-existent rule in OCS. the most i've personally done at one go is 65 for dragging my shoes on the ground and somehow not hearing my APC telling me to drop 20, so she got damn pissed and started counting 21-22-23-24...-65 until i finally got her idea and dropped into pumping position. hahahaha but ya la that was quite funny. i guess it depends la. on how many mistakes you make. like during field pack inspection- 1mistake=10pushups. so if you have 10 mistakes (which is highly probable given the rigid inspection standards), you can go "permission to carry on, ma'am" and proceed to knock it down hundred. now you know why it makes you stronger. actually i've got a lot more stories just not much time now cos i've to start mugging for my air force exams haha. oh wow this reply could be a blog entry all by itself haha.