This is certainly unexpected. In fact, right now, im supposed to be digging my x(th) shellscrape in the cover of the darkness, or resting if i've already done that.

But im in the civilian realm, and so are most of my army friends and men in my unit.

Oh...i would've been thinking of laksa now. Haha. Cos its cold outside. Or a large bowl of hot porridge. In the day, i'd be thinking of ice kacang. And the bathroom. But im at home and there's no craving.

Usually gummies will do. To suppress the craving. It been a timeless drug since young. I'd always have gummies during field camp. I like snakes and worms.

Sometimes i'd be walking at this time. Sometimes i'd wish i had, temporarily, broad and oversized shoulders. Because my shoulders hurt. It hurts bad everytime we walk. When we walk, we'd walk very far. We'd carry a lot of things.

But in front of my men, and even my friends, i need to be strong, or act least act like i am. Imagine im a man and i see my commander with his shag out face, what would i think? With broad and oversized shoulders, i don't have to act, but i don't have.

Still, i have gummies.

Sometimes, i think that if i were somewhere else other than Infantry, like a non-combat clerk, I might be featured in charity shows raising money for diabetic patients already cos there wouldn't be any 'output' to the sugar content in the gummies i eat.

But im not eating gummies now. Im eating this Cadbury 'dream' white chocolate bar i bought in the afternoon. The big bar. It says here...240g. I'm almost finishing the bar already...=)

I don't think its a good idea for a sweet tooth to stay home all day. Left by myself, i'd go diabetic.

In fact im damn bored. I shouldn't be at home at all. I wouldn't have taken off randomly like this(unless on impulse, say, if my gummies ran out)...they made it compulsory. I think the ideal work-life balance is a 4 1/2 day work week. That's becos by this (monday)afternoon, I ran out of things to do already. That was when i randomly cycled around and decided to buy the bar of chocolate at a supermarket.

And i have till Wednesday night to keep myself occupied. Fortunately my army friends have thought of smth to do tgt tml. If not, i might be getting another chocolate bar. I think they're equally bored.

I really can't wait to ORD. 162 days to ORD? I remember when i came out fresh from command school, i felt that i could really wait. I wanted to experience more. But now i can't. Now i feel that i've had enough. I've been through X field camps and X outfield trainings. In fact we've been going outfield at least once a week since May, which is quite unreasonable. But at least taxpayers aren't wasting their money. Its quality training.

Hmm, you know what my greatest challenge is? Its none other than training my Chinaman, Xiao1 Jun4. You know when he first came, my OC wanted to put him as a storeman. But i saw talent in him, and i told my OC he'll be fine as an infantry
man in my section.

"i'll teach him. I can translate anything. He's a smart guy." That was what i told my OC.

Now that i think of it, im really sorry to Xiao Jun. He could have been a storeman, but he's suffering with us now. During a field camp, i told him that he could have been doing stores instead of suffering with us. I brought him into this. But guess what he said? He said it was ok. He said he sees it as a challenge in life.

In fact i once asked him if he would stay and fight for Singapore if war broke out. Intriguing eh? I bet you'd ask the same question if you had a foreign PR in your charge.

And he replied "Hui4 ah1."

Things like that keep me going.

So imagine me translating every single thing to him and answering all his queries for this chinaman who will fight for singapore. Like introducing to him the parts of the tank that we trained to fight in.

"Zhe ge hen da de qiang... ke yi yong lai she X. Wo men yong de qiang she de zi dan tai xiao, she bu chuan."

And...training my chinaman in recee-ing. Like navigation. Im also a recon commander though i wasn't meant to be a scout.

Im like listening to my scout-trained superiors and translating real-time to my chinaman cos im afraid my short-term memory may cause some impt info to be leaked out. In fact, sometimes after explaining, i'd be the one asking him questions becos the info didn't register.

Despite all that, my chinese still sucks. I 'zhe ge' and 'na ge' most of the time.

And i also need to ensure that my melayu men are communicating with my chinaman. In fact they're doing well. They're friends. Where else can you find malays communicating with chinese who don't speak english? Its great. We're a gd team.

Eventually i came to realise it isn't the passing of time that will bring me to my ORD date. Its actually the things i have to do. I can see them.

I have a picture in mind. In the picture there's me in my Long 4(green camouflage uniform) in the middle, and me in civilian clothes on one end. In between there're many walls(obstacles in its basic form to me), but there are 2 exceptionally huge and thick walls.

On the other end, there're also many walls, but these walls have holes in them, and all the shattered bricks lay around each wall. Becos in the infantry i don't think we can get around obstacles. So there's this many walls left to ram through.

And time is passive...becos its will pass on its own. The picture only has me and walls. there's no representation of time.

I'd ORD when im done with the pain.