New everything

New house, new unit; everything's changing, whether I want it to or not.

First up, my 8-week signals course is finally over, culminating in a 16km route march (which I know is nothing compared to the 28km that the SCTs had to go through, but still, tiring is tiring). I finally have the signals insignia on my collar (though I have to buy 4 more for my other uniforms), and I can finally wear a formation badge and a blue beret (though both of those have to be purchased myself too -.- ). And then there's my new posting...

I still remember at the beginning of the course we heard stories about how 10C4I was the worst place we could go, but nearing the end of the course our possible postings looked so bleak that it became one of the best places we could go to. Alas, I did not go there, but instead got posted to 23 SIG BN. It's not hardcore or anything, and on the contrary I've heard stories of how good the life can get there, but the main issue with it is travelling time: it takes 2 hours for me to get there from home. Oh well, I can foresee a large part of my next one and a half years sitting in trains and buses.

And also if you didn't catch it from my first sentence, I have finally moved to my cousin's old house, where my family will stay temporarily for about 3 months or so before moving to our permanent new house. The new house is nice and big and all (my cousin is a pretty rich kid), but I'd much rather remain back in the old house. The familiarity with the layout, the furnishings and even the neighbourhood is something which I'm afraid I'll never capture again. I'll only be at home on weekends until after my NS, after which I'll linger around for maybe half a year or so before heading overseas for university, so basically for the next few years I'll be having a house that is not a home.

Sometimes I wish that time would just stand still at a particular moment. It doesn't have to be the perfect moment (after all, that moment doesn't exist), but I'll be content as long as it's a generally happy time. Being able to enjoy the same happy moments and going through the same familiar tribulations with my same old group of old friends is something that I find very tempting indeed. Still, in spite of all that I do realise that change is not only inevitable, but also necessary for our lives. Being frozen in time might sound appealing, but think about it: do we really want to do the same thing over and over until our flesh dries into dust? We might not necessarily dislike the outcome of a change in lifestyle, but we sure as hell detest the process. Any form of change, even if it is an improvement, comes with an awkward in-between phase when nothing seems to work for us, but it always smoothens out somewhat eventually.

Still Alive

Last Friday was the first and only IPPT of my SI life (since the other one was cancelled due to Cat 1), and I finally managed to do 8 pull-ups, jumping from a fail to a silver. That's great and all, but I still wonder if I could have done 6 pull-ups if I just tried a little bit harder 2 months ago in BMT, and maybe gone to SCS with my friends. Oh well, regret is useless now, and getting an extra hundred bucks now is nothing to frown about.

I had to do guard duty from Friday to Saturday, after which I went for an 09SH27 gathering, which consisted of Yicen, Michelle, Brenda, Loo, J.Tan, Junjie and finally Jacob, whom I haven't seen since his fateful enlistment into NDU. It was unfortunate that many of the gang couldn't make it due to field camp, but still it was nice to have a lunch outing again. We had lunch at Everything With Fries, which we decided should strive to become EWLF (Everything With Less Fries) or EWAAF (Everything With Appropriate Amount of Fries), because seriously not a single person at the table managed to finish their fries. After lunch, Yicen the organiser abandoned us to fetch J.Gan back from PRBI, leaving the rest of us, plus Tzumi who just joined us, to wander around finding something to do. After moving from place to place, we stumbled upon a flea market at Scape where the girls went shopping and the guys queued up for Gong Cha, and then we all split up. Oh well, at least the class spirit is still kind of alive, if by "class spirit" you mean the lack thereof between the guys and girls. I don't know why I still get slightly saddened by this.

Oh yes, and the combination of IPPT on Friday with no sleep due to guard duty and way too many fries made me really sick on Saturday night XP but all is well now.