2007 is ending, time to do some reflections.

Okay since it's only another half year before we become ncos, i shall look back on my ncc life so far, starting from the very beginning, so for those of you who do not wish to read about ncc stuff you can skip this post and go to the next post with the rest of the stuff.

This may sound damn cliched and all, but i had always wanted to join ncc since primary school. Ya. A lot of people called me crazy, but i don't regret my choice. I was in tennis for all 4 years in primary school, and i didn't want to continue since i'm not that good anyway. For ep3 selection, we had to fill in 5 choices for sports and then another section for uniformed groups for the first round. I wanted to get into ncc, so i purposely put all the popular sports that required selection to get in and put ncc as my first choice for uniformed groups. Unfortunately, i didn't get in, but a lot of people who didn't want to get in got in. I was quite demoralised and all, and i thought i had no chance, so for second round i decided to choose mediatech. I put it as my first choice and ncc as my second choice. Amazingly i got into ncc through the second round, maybe it was cos many people dropped out.

First training, those who had just joined, inlcuding me, were in a separate section so we could learn all the basic drills. I was the timer, and i remember that even sedia had timing then. I was assigned to section one, can't really remember who was inside already, but i can confirm that yangcheng, shyhhorng and daniel chan were inside. Section one was the most zai section at that time, i remember that sgt dingjie even called the other sections to come watch our section do drills during training.

Affirmation ceremony, wearing the no.4 for the first time. Apparently shyhhorng said he went to touch my boot and i scolded him lol. We had no school tag or name tag at that time and the other school cadets were asking us why, we didn't know either. Pds performance, can't remember much of it, can't even remember that the song was final countdown+sea of love.

First mid-year camp, was feeling quite nervous and all after hearing all my seniors had to say about camp. I remember that the one senior i knew at that time was weilong, and luckily for me i managed to be in the same section as him during that camp. My section had, zhengxiang, kenneth, yujie, yongle, jordy, ferris, junan, weilong, jonathan, houshun, yuxuan, jiajun, bingyeow and two more part cs..can't remember their names. I still have the camp photo pinned up. Was one of the first few people to get knocked during that camp cos my beret was screwed, and i didnt know who jared sia was at that time, so i had to ask for permission to know rank, what a great start for camp.

When we first met our tribe nco ssg zhiyi, he seemed like quite a nice person, but i didn't know who he was either, and i had no idea that he was part b ps. We had to come up with a tribe name, and our tribe name was mission possible 1. Botanical gardens orienteering, we were the first section to complete, maybe cos we had 3/5 of the 2006 oc team in our section lol. For the amazing race around singapore, we were the last section. And we had to carry this tofu around so we used it as an excuse to not run or else it would break and we cannot get bonus points. The route march, yongle vomiting ice cream on the stairs, bbq and first solonite, other highlights of the first camp. I saw weilong as a role model during the camp, and i actually hated cheering at that time, cos i thought it was meaningless. But the route march proved me wrong.

All the punishments during camp, though hiong, each one had a valuable lesson, for example, running to the tan kah kee stature from 3rd floor of sec 3 block and running back in 1min, it was an impossible task, and ssg zhiyi even said something like if we could do it we could join the olympics, but the main point was for us to stick together and not every man for himself, same lesson thought during the run up driveway, and cheering, in the middle of the night. Coming into our bunk and knocking us 100 before even checking anything, we didn't know why at first, but later we found out it was cos we had no sense of urgency when cleaning the bunk and everyone was taking they're own sweet time.

One of the trainings after camp, we were chased out of training due to the horrible attendance, not knowing how to do kebelakan pusing on the march and another matter regarding ng keat being admitted into hospital during camp. I still remember the line, "1 minute, take your things and get out of my sight". After training we stayed back to do drills on our own, though some went back to play. We even cheered cos one of our ncos was at the basketball court.

ORD, our skit. And the parodies of the songs. It's really a sad thing. But we had to move on. After yuhan, andrew, dingjie, shuliang and benedict passed out, yiming, karlton, jianhua, choonchuan and andre took over. We were shown a video of the ndp 2005, and how the supporting contingent screwed up, something we never wanted to happen again.

Start of part b life, 100 pumpings for every ponner, punishments usually cancelled due to the extreme numbers. NDP 06, screwing it up, going back to the bunk and just stoning there, we teared, while others were having fun at the ndp carnival. More and more people not being able to handle trainings as it made them "depressed", slowly our part became smaller. Complains to the principal, and abolishment of punishments. We were reduced to the last 26, 26 brothers, 26 together.

End of year camp, first camp with rifles. Promotional camp to lance corporal. 10 people were promoted, i wasn't one of them. Orientation 07, didn't manage to get into the drill contingents and was in some propaganda section. Got promoted during one of the orientation trainings together with shyhhorng and yujie.

2007, no more falling in as part as, we were part bs.

CSM 07, did not get in initially but got in as the last person, number 28. First pds performance made me both nervous and excited. The performance was jeopardised by a certain someone who complained our performance was too long when he had not even watched the whole thing. In the end we decided to stick to the same drill list. More performances, RSAF 07, NCC Day 07, trainings under the hot sun, tan lines on our hands from having worn white gloves.

ORD again, another batch of ncos passing out. Bertram, aaron, ferris and junkiat took over. Getting knocked right after pop and screwing up fall in position. Video for ord which was done by me heh, script done by yangcheng.

NDP 07 GOH, kawalan kerhormatan. We redeemed ourselves, video can still be found on youtube. Supporting contingent was good too.

24th October, Wednesday. Orienteering Competition 2007. All the mornings spent running 4.4km around the driveway, the time during holidays we sacrificed, and the "Sorry lar, what, don't want is it, don't want then don't want lar" haha. Feeling depressed and demoralised right after submitting our scoresheet as we had the same number of checkpoints as ri and completed in the same number of minutes, we didn't know the difference in seconds. Ncos tried to help us find out ri's timing and we were supposedly 4 seconds faster but we couldn't confirm it. Hearing the second place for route d, raffles institution, and cheering hysterically. We were the orienteering champions. We had managed to uphold the legacy, and won the orienteering competition for the third consecutive year. Being oc team leader, i guess that's the most significant leadership position i have had, motivating the team despite the screw ups, and getting shouted at by shyhhorng, though not intentionally haha.

Orientation 08 was not too long ago. Didn't manage to get into performance because of the japan trip, but did well the drill contingent was zai, a home sweet home BANG. Last cheering session of 2007, cheering louder than the drill contingent.

Today, pds self training, train basic drills, then advanced drills. Saturn, back saturn, vincent toss, axp toss, triple jumbo. Last training of the year.

I guess that's all so far. Still one and a half years left, less than half. Cherish this time we have left together, and remember the times we endured, cheered and showed our standards together. Jiayou Part Bs, Part Cs to be in a few hours.

darren