the past week


monday: survival training conducted by the feared commando training wing - some people took the precaution of writing their will first. actual subject matter rather more prosaic - solar stills, improvised water filtrating, edibility tests, show-n-tell edible plants. chicken and snake killing still pending.

and i'm joking about the wills.

battalion outing to big splash in the afternoon. boring. there's a limit to the number of times you can go down the slide before getting bored. ( mine is about 4 ). before long people started trying stunts - going down standing up, hopping from slide to slide etc etc, blatantly flouting the signs saying "on your bum only." ( <-- paraphrased, obviously ).


tuesday: off to marsiling for section battle course. bleah.

the start of 3 days of combat rations. bleah to the power of a zillion.

a durian fell on someone's signal set and broke the antenna off.


wednesday: river crossing. river water is smelly.

we were supposed to do a crossing at night but it was called off at the last minute because a croc was spotted in the water.

bloody croc. the least it could've done was come out before we did the first crossing.


thursday: the second-worst feeling in the world has got to be sleeping in wet boots.

the worst feeling is humping around marsiling carrying 20+ kg of gear ( and occasionally your 60+ kg section mate ) in wet boots.

did our first real mission - a raid on an enemy rebro site. tiring! especially when we had to do it three times because we screwed up the first two.


friday: my platoon commander just told me he wants to send me for the most shag ( for that matter, the only shag course available ) course available in my next phase of training. i hate him. either he thinks i'm good, or he hates me and wants me to go there and suffer. either way, i don't want to go.

in marsiling, there are always choppers flying around now and then throughout the day. being on the ground, hot and exhausted, looking up - depressing.

booked out at 6.40pm. have to book in by 7pm saturday. this is the 4th consecutive week, out of 5 weeks total, where we've had parts of our weekend burnt with no compensation. at least 2 more weekends will be fucked up. for a total of at least 6 out of 9.



well. that was a good week, wasn't it now. i'm loving it!

[matt nathanson - laid]