..:: 342. The One With Ex HIPPO ::..

this week has been mentally and physically tiring... Had a drill session on mon morning... tiring sia.. wing SM said he wanted to drill us so that when we go back to OCS, the training there will be nothing. Mon raining so SOC was postponed till friday. luckily it was postponed, ya know why later... had a lecture on recce... i got 82% for my test the next day.. hee.. happy :)

then planning ex started on tue... it was intensive.. we got a turn out but there wasnt a nid to lay everything out. We received our warning order and started on our planning... From 2pm, we planned all the way till 8pm to know that we had to 'samula' aka re-do the ex... cos our OC was not happy with our performance. His 3 golden rules: treat the ex like in real ops; say what you mean, mean what you say; discipline. We seemed to be unable to meet timing cos lots of planning and writing... When we present in front of OC, confirm break into cold sweat. he wld zoom in to each word you say. then when he shoots a question, most of us will be stunned... i have compiled a list of what pointers to take note of... i copied like 8 pages of notes for the ex. took me 2 hrs to compile...

interesting sights you will see after 12am... people start to do things slowly... some stoned... some dozed off if they were not doing things for more than 10secs? We received our orders again around 2am. Can see people opening their mouth kinda wide... we planned till 430am then sleep. woke up at 530am for breakfast then continue planning. my greatest achievement was that i didnt close my eyes throughout the ex... unless its sleeping time... must thank all the red cross training i used to have... planning in the late nights... still remember i had evac lesson ard 12mn and pitch tents ard 2am + ... then still got turn-outs in the middle of the night when i was a cadet... Some concuss until u wake them, they also cannot stay awake for the next 5 secs.

We ended everything on thur night. got a good night sleep... but fri SOC was hell... had to do an orientation run then some of the obstacles there seemed higher than in OCS SISPEC... first time i didnt clear my swing traine aka monkey bar. cos it was just too slippery. no grip... after so many people with sweaty palms... i tried 5 times and i had no energy liao... bottle dropped out again. must buy rubber band to secure liao...

something shocking happened too... OC actually stripped pple off their ranks when they couldnt complete SOC... i understand his rationale in if a commander cannot do what your man do, then something is wrong. However, it was the first time after like 3 mths since we did SOC... Should at least give them a chance. Lucky me was chosen to take over the role of CPC. well dejavu... back to shouting and more shouting... no more man mode liao... worried about turn out cos i have to ensure everyone's equipment is servicable... and CO parade on 2 sept... stressed... and bridging CBRE, EOD all coming back...

Ex Zenia was fun... working with the OC-trainees at advanced training wing is interesting... the whole of next week is planning and i love it! fri cohesion day. go east coast, cycle and run for 12km. still got abt 13 weeks more in SOCE...