If you've been reading my blog, it won't be news that this year started quite badly for me. 'Bad' is not always dictated by one's surroundings, but also by one's mental state, perceptions, and morale in general. I kept wishing that life would be completely rid of anything that is difficult, but really, I know it's not the challenge that is so demotivating about this army thing. Rather, it's my inability to be interested in anything related to the army.
I really hate being in the army, and I'll admit that because I'm anti-social, I wasn't able to make close friends. In BMT, at least I felt comfortable with the people around me. Where I am now, I don't feel that. It's definitely not because of them; it's just that people connect with some people and not with others. Chemistry, coherence, and whatnot.
My point is that after this field camp which I've just been through (yup, right after CNY, we had a field camp), I got a bit closer to my section mates. I felt a little (just a little) more motivated about this army thing. Somehow, I'm this slightly more motivated. Perhaps it's because one of the activities was interesting or perhaps it was because my new sergeant recognised that I can be quite capable (heh). Maybe it's that.
Ever since I graduated from school, I hardly felt capable. I entered production as a newbie and felt like the blur cock who would screw things up unintentionally. Guess what? I did. I went into the army, not with the same perception, but guess what? I still screw up unintentionally. People naturally have very little faith in my abilities. I had zero faith in my ability in the army and it didn't bother me because it's the army.
Obviously I'm not going to feel good about this whole thing. I want to be proud of myself. Maybe people don't have to be proud of me, but I want to feel good about myself. So yeah, the title of this post is 'living with pride', because that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to try to feel proud of who I am - both the permanent me and my current identity. I'm not going to let the circumstance or surroundings damage my pride because I've had enough of feeling lowly.
Before my re-fieldcamp in BMT, I was really sad and my dad told me something that my religious leader wrote in his books (my apologies for always mentioning my religion) was that when you feel afraid in life, or when you feel like you cannot handle it, think of yourself as a lion. As a lion, you are strong and brave, and it's not you who has to be afraid. And now that I think about it, there's tremendous pride in being a lion.
I know that above line could've been a decent way to end this post, but let's end it abruptly with a list of very vague things that happened in field camp instead:
- Right from the beginning, everyone knew that this field camp would be easier that BMT's, and we were right.
- Except that the first night's activity was damn troublesome and kind of messed up, despite being perfectly logical.
- My friend, Sing Hao, and I were unluckily picked to do quite a lot of sai kang.
- Didn't get much sleep in night 1. Didn't even get time to powder bath. Morale was super low.
- Day 2 was shag, but the night was a lot better.
- I'm proud to say that something I couldn't do in BMT's field camp, I think I did pretty well this time.
- Heat rashes, rashes in general, dirty clothes, camo, irritated eyes (due to sweat and camo), wet clothes and helmet, etc.
- Day 3 was okay. It was really, really okay.
- Although day 4 was really shag, it was pretty fun too.
- Day 5, which is today, was just post-fieldcamp admin. Cleaned our equipments and prepared for Sunday's activity. Kind of rushed.
Labels: reflection, things that happened