remember the 8km run i was supposed to do on wed and the 7km one on friday? well God answers prayers and it actually really did rain at like 5.45am right before the run could begin, and then the freezing rain suddenly releases you from expectations, performance demands, and the tyranny of appointments and schedules. you could almost hear a unified sigh rise from the parade square and surrounding wings where nature has intervened to give respite to the weary humans slogging it out within her purview. and our hearts are suddenly and unexpectedly a little giddy. we ran the 8km anyhow, in place of friday's run.

and God's been ever so amazing and my superhero, literally. its an outrage of justice to just describe it all in a couple of words.


well so i had to wait, at least till the rain and water subsided. you dont lose a bunk key, for its not only $50 and extras, but all that inconvenience in having to change the lock and all. to be honest i was really rather disturbed by the thought of losing the key but yet didnt really wanna think about it. nothing i could do at the moment really. dont wanna think about it yet not ever letting it outta my mind. so after breakfast the rain subsided a bit and i kinda went down with my friend to get the laundry, so might as well give my key a shot. and just about 5 seconds away from where i assumed it would be, there was a power failure! the lights were down, and the only light source was this little lamp-stand(whatever u call that) between the training shed and my wingline. and there u have it, with the lamp's rays gracefully focused and pointing out my key at the bottom of the drain admist the entire stretch of darkness. it really felt like it was God Himself placing His finger holding down the key in place and then kindly pointing it out to me. ah saved my ass yet again.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

oh anyway, i decided to pamper my legs and soothe my aching knees(by burning a hole in my wallet), and bought a pair of running shoes. they kinda got the retailer down so just decided to grab a pair, slightly over a $100. i realised NS does really make sense of the term 'allowance' instead of 'salary'.

also, i managed to catch up with michael at the range(where u shoot targets with your rifle). yeah michael long from my upper sec class whom we used to talk about theology, apologetics and our own walk in class. shared with him briefly how the past 2 yrs were and what i took out of it. and he shared how God encouraged him and saved his studies and all. really encouraging and all sharing how each of us grew from who we were to who we are. what we really want in life and what matters to us christians in defiance of culture.

it became clearer and clearer over the past week on how, cliche as it seems, that even with our little supposedly insignificant decisions(perhaps in compromise), we mould bit by bit our character and ultimately, who we are.

listenin to - fuego de dios by hillsong united

and the loyal soldier is set free after 20 days. yes it has to be 20 days when every other wing in ocs booked out on friday evening, cause we were terribly special to have live range on saturday. and of which it got postponed due to power failure but we still couldnt book out cause sunday's breakfast has already been indented for us. oh well. this also means another saturday is gonna be burnt for range.

and yeah i suppose the past 20 days hasnt really been the most comfortable or relaxing. we had our pts on top of the 1000 word autobioography, daily journal entry which has to consist of at least one learning point, reflections to write, and tests to study. yes really study. probably ran ard over 30km the past 3 weeks, had turnouts, change parades, everything in-and-out mental torture, all these on top of the training schedule already planned out for us. okay some events were actually fun, like waking up at 5am to go for a cool dip into the freezing pool then jumping down 5m into the pool, then changing and running up the ocs tower which is ard 265 steps high while screaming your lungs out. we had some chemical defence package too where you literally see grown boys cry, foam and salivate.

oh and i had a couple of times where God literally saved me yet again. on the first sat we had this navigation exercise where we were thrown into this jungle to navigate through, armed with only a compass(yes, while you all were enjoying the aircon of nexus). after the day exercise i was totally drenched from head to toe in sweat as it was so freaking humid, and the terrain was really quite bad. then we had the night exercise. i needed to get to my last checkpoint to be able to complete the night exercise. so i was really lazy and instead of navigating ard this impossible hill i decided to just climb it and bash through(which almost caused me two popped knees). so i made it up and up, then finally came down the other side. by the time i reached my checkpoint i was really so exhausted and all, and i reached into my LBV(load-bearing vest) only to realise i left the pocket zip totally down and my check list was no where in sight. gosh i swear i could have killed myself right there. cause it was totally pitch dark u couldnt even see your own hands at times. all there was was the two 0.5cm glowing compass tips. so i had to turn ard and walk back up that hill, in no particular direction caused i didnt follow a track nor did i know how to get up. i seriously had no idea how i was gonna find my checklist in the middle of nowhere. sort of like looking for a needle in a haystack with your eyes closed. i prayed as sincerely as i know how asking God to 'be a lamp to my feet' and walked ard aimlessly. then like some 80m up the hill, i saw from the corner of my eye a little to the left, my ziplock bag with my checklist! ah oh man. that's one for the record.

of course there's really embarrassing moments too, like when i fell asleep waiting for the other half to finish their weapon lessons, after i watched a walk to remember on my ipod. i kinda got up really disorientated and ran down after putting on my footwear. then when i was at the end of the stairs, in full view of everyone in the training shed, i bumped into one of the officers. he asked me what's wrong with me thrice. at first i thought i held my rifle wrongly, then i thought cause i left my left boot lace outta my gutters. then i finally realised i had worn my combat boots on my left feet and my white pt shoe on my right feet. totally embarrassing esp when everyone was looking. yeah go ahead and laugh.

on the second sunday it was parents visitation day, whereby we get to meet our loved ones. it was really refreshing, to see my parents and my sis(bro didnt go though). really missed them, my family. ah missed my sis quite abit. haha and she talked to me on msn two nights ago in camp(yeah we get to use the com in camp) and asked which version of msn was i using, so she could send me a wink lol. but that day was also probably the day where the gates of hell were opened as we promoted into service term.

i suppose ocs really takes pride in what it does. lots of lectures and lesson plans about finding out about ourselves and leading others. some of which are really insightful and comprehensive. made me think quite abit, about who i am and who i wanna be. i remember a phrase which went "follow your own star; be an original." kinda made alot of sense to me with the word an added in. yeah leadership really is more encompassing than i thought it was.

don't shape it back. i believe in clean breaks, i keep the old troubles away.