Pro Term

Pro Term is here! Marched into SAFTI this morning with the junior cadets lined up cheering for us - makes me feel (very slightly) remorseful for what I might be doing to them in a week's time. Oh well. Everyone goes through the same thing, mwahahaha.

Our 23km route march was a test in every sense of the word. It wasn't physical but mental exhaustion that made the march difficult - the sheer boredom of having to keep walking in the dark, the feeling of wanting to fall asleep towards the end, the silence... actually, only platoon 2 was silent. Platoon 3 in particular went crazy with some kind of "brain drain" song, and sustained the single line "This is a song that irritates you" for the whole last leg of the march. That's resilience. I respect that. But yes, it did irritate me.

They did manage to cheat us of some distance - it's obvious we marched at least 2-3km more than 23km. Oh well. It goes down as a 23km route march for the symbolism I suppose. Although we should technically have 24, not 23 weeks left... strange.

The ceremony on top of Elephant Hill was fairly unremarkable - won't go down as the most emotional moment of my army career for sure... this maybe partly due to the inadequacy of the sound system. Still, it had some meaning - Dennis managed to engineer it so that we changed our epaulettes for each other again, as we did for the transition to service term. And the view was nice, can't deny that.

This route march also represented the conclusion of my use of my size-8 boots. They have served me well. I now have bigger fish to fry. Or rather, bigger boots to wear (size 9 Gore-Tex! whoo!). I don't really support frying fish, it's a bit unhealthy.

I have thigh abrasions the diameter of teacups. New record. Was waddling like a duck on the way back (incidentally, we bumped into Alpha Coy at the PLC SOC ground; Julian, you look very happy doing fatigue duty instead of running :P ).

So, the start of a new term and the end of a tumultuous but fulfilling one. Should probably define part of the reason for my use of "tumultuous" - am in the process of clearing 7 extra (actually, once you go above 4, it doesn't really seem like a lot). I'm happy and thankful that I've made it this far, but I'm also a bit sad about what needs to be left behind. Will miss the old Section 3 as we get reshuffled.

Pro Term presents a variety of new challenges - SEOC, Brunei, Taiwan, CSB, etc. I suppose the best thing to do is to take it one day at a time, and to look forward to all the long weekends we have been promised. Mwahaha.

Zebra and Spade

Just got back from platoon field camp. After "exercise cut" on Spade I was completely concussed, mainly because I'd only had 4 hours of sleep over the 3 days of Ex. Zebra and Spade. It's a weird feeling... you can talk to people without really thinking about what you're saying or doing. It's like your mouth is moving automatically while your brain has already shut down. Pretty cool.

Anyway was exercise PS for Zebra. That was fun... FBO all the way over 8km for about 6 hours before we assaulted. Was ok during the planning and movement phase... seriously, holding an appointment must increase your combat fitness by tenfold, otherwise I'd never have got through it. Assault was a bit cocked up since my reserve coordination was all over the place, but really it was my fault. Anyway we did win the battle in the end. ^_^

Carried home this weekend lots of sleep deprivation, a completely numb right big toe, lots of small cuts on my hands from mimosa (this from proning in the wrong place when I was MG gunner during platoon battle course), and of course a lot of shit that needs to come out. Interestingly enough there was an outhouse where we harboured. Who knows where the heck it came from. o_O

Oh well. It was a fun field camp, except for the digging part. I can conclusively say I hate digging and am really no good at it. Don't make me do it again, especially dehydrated and half-asleep. Argh.

Congrats to all the new corporals if you're reading this... have fun in ASLC. :P At least for you guys the end is in sight. I will (still hopefully) remain an OCT for an unbelievably long time yet. [whacks head against wall]

Well, that's it for now. Need to go get some sleep.