yeah okay. here we are, the last week of 2008. well nothing much really happened, just that last last week we had our block leave, of which i went on my guitar gear shopping spree and set myself back by $900. bought a couple of stompboxes(pedals). a Keeley Mod Boss BD-2, Fulltone v4 OCD, Boss DD-5, FS-5U, EHx Nano Clone and a proel pfs-22(which kind of was a total waste of money). okay yeah to the vast majority the previous sentence just did not make any sense, but basically pedals are stuff that changes the tone of the e. guitar sound that is produced.

and Christmas came and went by, managed to book out in time to fly straight down for Christmas service but was still a little late. finally a service after ard 2 months. well really sorry i aint managed to write any Christmas cards cause i only realised Christmas was so near like on the 20th. and out of the 5 days left 3 days were spend outfield for ex dump-in, which left the remaining days for stores, weapon maintence and well orders.

ah goodbye 2008. been a really long year in more ways than one.

yeah im back from brunei, back from jcc and im glad and definitely proud enough to say that i wear that badge proudly above my left breast pocket now. apart from losing 7 kg in the 9 days, im also covered from head to toe all over with these insane amount of sandfly bites i look like a homeless std victim. and the quantity from tube of cream the doc gave me only permitted its usage twice. my feet all cracked and cut up from the many torturous hours stumbling ard in the two swimming pool boots of mud and water. and i have all these little cuts all over from the thorns of various creepers and plants i feel so, torn.

i dont think i would wanna go indept into the details of the entire jcc process but well, it was really 9 days i wont forget i suppose. i never felt so beaten, defeated, anguished, wasted, lost, homesick, depressed and every feeling that comes close to bringing justice to the absolute annul we all felt, especially on the 5 and 6 day where we were totally lost and disorientated with almost no water left, stranded at the downward side of the mountain. and there was rain and more rain. the nights were the longest, and the coldest. with the onslaught of sandflies and all, sleep was really literally painful, slow and very wet.

on the night before jcc itself, they passed us letters from our families back in singapore, most of which contained encouragements and pictures of all sorts to spur us and motivate us to press on for the next 9 days. i must say i was really encouraged by it, it being a first for me. it was the first time my parents wrote me a letter, as with many others that night. and yes you have no idea the impact and significance those seemingly unadorned and simple words could bring you when you're at rock bottom dragging yourself along only with a stubborn saneless will. so many times you feel like breaking down but pull yourself together knowing that it wont solve a thing, and the letters from further away keep pulling you close to home, something to cushion the callous sighs.

out of my group of 10, 2 fell out (cause of a sprained ankle and an almost truncated left thumb), 4 failed (very largely due to the fact of lack of time for ex forager and overly bitchy assessors.) and 4 passed. i would say my group went through perhaps alot more than what was required of the jcc itself, considering the amount of extra knolls and ravines we had to overcome given the fact we lost our way so many times. ay oh well. hope they give us our block leave next week. and then the two weeks of training before we fly off to thailand this time, for yet another 3 weeks.