Tinker, Tailor

They finally released us back into civilisation. But I’m still pissed.

(I’m so pissed that I’m not sure if I can write coherently. But i’m so pissed that I don’t care.)

Pissed because they only released us around 5pm just now, even though we were done soon after lunch. And then they want us back by 10pm tomorrow.

Pissed because every single day since monday they’ve been cooking chicken wings and chicken wings and chicken wings for us for lunch or dinner or lunch and dinner. Even when we were out in the field and looking forward to some real fresh food (as opposed to the preserved rations), when the real fresh food finally came (a few hours late) and we opened the packets in the dark, we could make out the pair of chicken wings lying in there.

Pissed because they 2 day 1 night affair last thursday and friday was supposed to be quite light. My shoulder and back muscles are still very sore from carrying and walking around in our extreme loads (around 50kg).

Pissed because on monday, we’re starting our 4 day 3 night affair, which would be much much tougher than the 2 day 1 night affair. No one is even lying that it would be easy at all.

Pissed because the 4 day 3 night affair is going to be super strict. This means mobile phones are strictly forbidden, and I’m not ready to take the risk. This means no twitter updates from monday morning till some time on thursday. This means I can’t whine for the whole world to see. This means I’ll be even more pissed.

But on thursday, if I’m alive enough to twitter, I’ll be a much happier guy.

Wish me luck, even though luck doesn’t exist.

As promised, here’s my “quick post” just a few hours before I surrender myself into the confines of a non-civilian environment for the next few weeks.

The more sensitive ones of you may detect that it’s not a situation that I’m entirely excited about.

It’s partly to do with the lack of females in the environment. Sure, you do encounter them every now and then, but they are as sexually attractive as any of the guys. And no matter how deprived I am, the car exhaust pipe will always be a more attractive option.

Then, there’s the boredom. The restlessness. The ennui. The monotony. All those many dreary hours, lying in bed, with plenty of time to think of synonyms, or catch up on sleep till satiated, and then more. As usual, I’ll have a couple of books at hand to peruse, while the rest of the guys play their cards, smoke while staring into space, chit chat, or exchange pr0n on their mobiles.

But those are soon forgotten when the real thing happens. 4 days 3 nights of the real thing.

Well, the real thing isn’t always that bad.

As long as it isn’t like that time when it rained so hard and the wind blew so hard in the middle of the night that we had to hide under this flyover, and I had to lend another guy my spare uniform because he was shivering away.

Or like that last time when we had to walk in blazing heat lugging our usual extreme load (trust me that it’s extreme - it’s around the weight of xiaxue) that I ended up really giddy and having a headache.

Or like the other time when we had to step into waist-deep canal water, in our usual extreme load. The guy in front of me lost his footing and disappeared momentarily into the water, which got me quite worried for the digital camera in my pocket.

Or like that time we had to do what we refer to as “the Spiderman walk”, where, with our usual extreme load, we had to cling onto the fence as we moved along for hundreds of metres, so that we wouldn’t tumble down the slope. The guy in front of me dropped his helmet which rolled down the slope and was never seen again, even though we lowered a rope to search for it. Our fingers, of course, were rather sore after “the Spiderman walk”.

But really, what scares the toughest of us is simply walking with that extreme load. I start sweating carrying that thing, even without walking. And to ask us to walk with it through any type of terrain that isn’t flat is pure torture.

Like that time when we started at midnight and those “planners” expected us to reach our destination before 6am the next morning. Those “planners” had never walked around bearing such weight before, but we have, so we knew that it was a stupid idea.

It turned out that we were almost 3 hours late, none of us with a single drop of water left, but drenched in perspiration, with my right hand stained with dried blood because I cut myself in the pitch-black jungle some time during the ordeal.

But that would be 4 days 3 nights.

What I’ve almost forgotten is the constant torture from those bloody bitches throughout the few weeks. I swear I’m gonna kill em all.

P.S. I’ll still be updating my twitter, but more religiously.

SUPER busy this month, so I’m unlikely to blog until after the first week of August.

I might pop in a quick post around 20-23 July, and I’ll still keep updating my twitter.

Till then,

It was during the break of a presentation that my colleague was giving when I went up to these two ladies sitting near the front.

You see, it was obvious that they hadn’t been paying attention, constantly whispering to each other. So I decided to reprimand them a bit.

“Eh, you two haven’t been paying attention huh?”

“So?” said one of them.

“Well if you don’t behave, I may have to ask you to stand in front of the room and pull your ears!”

“Dowan,” she replied. “I want you to spank me.”