Great shots!
Photo taking for Leopard company and its respctive platoons turned out to be quite a hilarious experience, because of the weather.
Doing sizing (arranging a group of people according to height) for the whole company wasn't an easy task, especially when there're people like me who tend to estimate their heights wrongly... when we're to stand in a line with the shortest on the left and tallest on the right, I went to a part of the line where I thought I would nicely fit, until I was asked if I really thought I was that tall.
I was shifted very far to the left afterwards.
Now for the weather... it was a sunny day during the photo taking. Too sunny. By the time the chairs were arranged for our instructors (sergeants and warrant officers for our company) and the sizing was done, the chairs were so hot that our instructors took their seats with great reluctance...
We, the chao recruits, were finally better off than our instructors this once; we're standing.
After our photos were done, Colin, our photographing enthusiast from platoon 4 (he's in my section as well), brought his $15K Nikon D2X to take photos for us too!
It's OK lah... our instructors just had to bear with the hot seats for a little while more.
Colin took more pictures after the photo taking... including group photos for platoon 4... and I got a shock of my life when he suddenly stormed into the toilet with his camera while I was taking a shower... he only took a photo of my face lah.
Leopard Night
Leopard company came together for a night of song and skit performances prepared by the respective platoons.
There were lots of interesting performances... but most of the time, we couldn't hear what the performers were saying when the skits were presented.
Fortunately, the skit done by our platoon was OK. Some of them played the recruits, while others played the roles of our OC (Officer Commanding), PC (Platoon Commander) and 2 of our sergeants.
As for the song item, 5 guys from our platoon were involved. Chin Seng and Wei Kiat sang, Shaun played the guitar, Chee Hang played the Erhu and I played the harmonica. Our song was More Than Words.
Seriously, I think our platoon's items were among the best... and Chee Hang was one of the few people I know who can say that they're ready to play any song they know on the instruments they specialise in. Our performance was a last-minute preparation... as many of the others were. Our instructors could see the fact too, I guess... but they were generaly pleased with the items. One of our Warrant Officers even said that this showed that "the moment of truth always comes when we're most unprepared".
After the performances, I, along with some of my platoon mates went for interviews with the SAF Counselling Unit... because we were interested in becoming counsellors during the rest of our 2 years of NS.
My interview went fine, but I could tell that I won't get into the Unit, because later when there was another interview to be done with only some of the applicants, my name wasn't shortlisted.
Sob... am I really destinied to be a clerk for the rest of these 2 years?
IPPT
Our fitness test took place on a cool Tuesday Morning... and while I expected to fail my Standing Broad Jump and Shuttle Run, I passed these 2 items. SBJ was really a close shave... the distance I jumped was 216 cm... which was exactly the passing distance!
And then I had to fail Chin-up... I did 4, while the passing mark was 6.
Fail one, fail all.
PES C Pride
Games Day was regarded as quite an important event in BMTC... we're already told about it on the first few days of BMT. And I think the Tug-of-war event was the one our OC is most concrened about; he personally trained our Tug-of-war team.
Leopard Company had the reputation of being a frequent Games Day overall champion, but this year is different from the past few years.
In the past, Leopard Company was made up of standard batch recruits... which refers to the PES A and B people (or is it just PES B?). The very garang Ah-Bengs.
This time round, Leopard Company, along with Ulysses Company, was home to PES C recruits. And people would normally regard PES C people as the "weaker" batch.
Maybe it's because of this reason that we Leopards strived to stand out during Games Day to prove ourselves.
To digress a bit... every company will have a mascot for their cheering team... for Leopard, there was no exception. Our mascot was a kiddish-looking leopard fur suit with a very cute head-dress.
And it was an honour that I got to wear that suit on the day itself.
Basically, I had to be as wild as possible when cheering along with the rest of the Leopard recruits. I tried to be wild on the day itself lah... at least there're some people who were satisfied with my "performance", and that's enough.
Back to the games... our company won all the events except for being the 2nd runner-up for the "Longest Race".
We totally went wild during the prize presentation ceremony... couldn't help lah, you know, we just kept hearing our company's name being called to recieve the champion prize... It was really a historical moment when our OC went up to recieve the trophy for the Games Day Overall Champion 2006.
What really made history was the fact that we're the first PES C company to have won the Games Day!
Now... does anyone still look down on us PES C recruits?
Recruits' Night
Games Day was followed by Recruits' Night, during which we could go wild and party around in civilian clothes and all.
The performances by recruits were great... there was this tribal cheer, an A Capella rendition of camp songs like Purple Light, guitar performances, fire-juggling performances, Yo-yo stunts, Chinese opera, and... did I leave anything out?
That was realy a wonderful evening... after the recruits' items, there were also performances put up by the SAF Music and Drama Company... that was when we really went wild and danced around. Some of us even went onto the stage to dance with the MDC performers!
Leopard Company cheered like crazy whenever were addressed... partly because we just became the Games Day Overall Champion that afternoon.
"Grenade!"
The Grenade Live throw took place on the day after Games Day. There was actually a trial on another day before we got to do the live throw, but I missed it as I had to report sick on that day.
Which was why I was damn nervous on the live throw day itself. After doing the practice drill using the SPG (standard practice grenade), some of my friends asked me why my face looked so pale. Only then I realized how nervous I was.
My actual throw turned out all right, and fortunately we're required to throw only one live grenade, so everything was over in an explosion.
