2 more weeks

last week was long walk but this week was something that you cannot really compare to in terms of the level of difficulty. This week, being the CST week, saw us hacking and chopping fishtail palm trees with the parang/et spade, gathering leaves- big leaves, smooth leaves, dried leaves, plucking vines of all sorts from trees all around us and of course, tying the chopped wood together using the vines, comscord and toggle rope to make an A frame structure, fireplace, monitor lizard trap etc. And I have to say that this was pretty much an enriching experience. Finding a nice shady spot, putting down our load, clear some vegetation and come down to business itself. There was not much of walking, much less under the giant fireball; there was not much of sweating or more likely, mental and physical torment. Until now, I still felt more accomplished for actually completing the 60k ++ route march rather than having no foodies during the past 2 days of combat survival training outfield. Campcraft has been honestly a superb idea, with the knowledge of knots and lashings picked up many years back, and it has been one of my stronghold too. What was interesting was that within our team, everyone had their strengths and thus we deployed each and everyone in our team to the activity that is deemed fit for them best. I contributed in chopping trees, collecting campfire fuel, digging soil for the solar still, and a bit of the fireplace and much for the A frame. Basically bearing in that we were outfield busy doing our tasks given the time frame, the need for food was not much of an issue. Furthermore we would only need to endure for one and a quarter days of hunger (actually not really that much) by compensating with sleep and much water. Guess what? It was effective. Killing quails was crucial for survival, but definitely it made one felt like a murderer, albeit with no malicious intentions. Fortunately it was only a small bird and the skinning took place quite fast. THis, alongside with the fact that we were all hungry and wanted to vent our accumulated frustrations, allayed our, or at least some of our paranoia, if any. Oh and I was rather pissed off, though it was partially my fault, that Lulu and I actually carried 5 jackfruits from our harbouring area to the admin training shed just to be turned down and given a further task of boiling the supposedly ripe fruit in the shell and bringing it back just to show the instructors that we should not have pluck them off from the trees not knowing whether it was ripe. Upon knowing that we did not accede to his demand, the course intructor punished us with jackfruit jumping jacks which was rather stupid. There was so much information to be gathered but as reflected from the AAR, the instructors did not really went through certain details comprehensive enough due to administration lapses for us to execute so as to meet the assessment criteria. But after all, jungle survival trains initiative personnel and facing with all these geographical limitations, time shortage, administration lapses, solutions were necessary. Overall, i would rate CST 6.5/10. Not bad a score in fact. The past 2 days were spent gorging oneself with all sorts of craps ranging from dallas fried chicken and its likes to chicken rice to jam biscuits and chocolate to bubble tea, fried noodles and tomyum noodles which could have easily brought my health down if not for the sufficient water downed. Anyway it felt good and certainly bad when M&D were having a ball of their time overseas and I'm here using the computer and going out as long and as late as possible respectively lol. Yay kbox tomorrow before booking in! woohoo! time to train up a bit on the voice. 2 more weeks left to the rank, hat and increased pay!!!