Terrible headache

I woke up with my skin as though it were placed on a warm pan.

A splitting headache soon invaded my temples, and the whole of my Saturday morning was spent nursing it with a Panadol.

Hopefully, I am able to overcome this sudden attack, and post the interesting things that happened this week (We got to ride high in the sky, and were treated to a spectecular view of the Singapore skyline, all thanks to a helicopter; we also did combat swim across a man-made river. Totally cool.)

I am crawling into my bed now.

Gas! Gas! Gas!

What does the sight of someone clad in a gas mask, totally hooded, sweating inside a suit made totally for temperate climates remind you of?

I only had one thought when I found myself inside one: Nobody could ever carry out a successful chemical warfare in Singapore - both sides will die from the resulting heat exhaustion. This morning, I peered out at the gas chamber (which was affectionately called the "smoke trainer") from behind the lens, and had the time to think about the horrors of rogue chemicals and biological weapons wrecking havoc onto the world. Those not dead would have to suffer the troubles of a sweat suit.

The previous detail had gone in, and there was a commotion inside the chamber. My detail instructors peered through a gap in the door and turned back to face us, and shrugged his shoulders.

"Now, you just remember not to panic when you go in," he admonished. Apparently, some earlier details had not taken the advice to their heads.

We eventually entered in single files. The room was brightly lit, and a white mist hung in the air. I entered reluctantly, not wanting to leave the comfort of the cool post-downpour weather outside.

"Let's do some stretching exercises for starters..."

After one small set of jumping jacks in the stuffy suit, we were asked to change the filter canisters on our masks. One by one, with eyes screwed tight, and our breaths held for dear life, we turned the canisters out of the mask, and screwed it back on again. The necessary drills done, we were about to have fun.

We lined up in two rows, and one by one, we took off our gas masks, looked straight into the instructor's eyes, and shouted our NRIC number, rank, name, and our home addresses, before we left the room.

Being the last in the row, I could see the effect of tear gas on my friends: Some coughed, and barely managed to control it. They even had trouble saying their own names without a pause to catch their breaths inside the gas filled room. When they got to leave the room, it was hard for them to not run ("Or else you will go for another round," another officer warned before we entered).

Finally my turn came. I ripped off the hood, and nervously fiddled with the straps of the mask. I took one last deep breath before pulling the mask free from my face. The effect was apparent. As I spoke, my eyes were starting to tear, and my face felt like it was pierced with thousands of needles. It was tough to keep my hands from rubbing my face.

Once I finished, I stumbled outside into the welcoming breeze of the outside weather. My sergeant helped me pull off my gloves, so that I could go to the shower to clean my face. However, the water did little to stop the maddening burning sensation. The sergeant took the liberty to take a photograph of me when I looked my worst. The platoon sergeant joined in, this time taking a group photograph of my detail. We looked like we had just survived a World War.

When I was finally free from the effects of the tear gas, I managed to walk back to the holding area, where I found out what happened to the previous detail: My buddy panicked when he was supposed to take off his mask, and struggled to dash out of the room. His shouting only managed to introduce more gas into his lungs, and he collapsed outside the gas chamber...

I teased him on the bus back to camp about how people reap what they sow (he stole my bread right from under my nose the previous night). What an amazing day.

Self-inflicted sleep deprivation experiment

I probably am twisted, doing irrepairable damage to my own body.

You see, I had a 12 km route march yesterday, and by some unknown chemical reactions with all the hormones inside my brain, I decided to find out how long I could tax my body physically before it gave out. After the route march, I went out for lunch with my friends, then proceeded onto a protracted 12 hour marathon on my computer - all without any rest.

I had intended to last until 4 am, but I knew I had lost when I raised my head from the keyboard and saw pages and pages of gibberish keystrokes that I nearly posted onto a local forum website.

Somebody recommend a shrink.

Sheares Bridge Run!

Run away! I am going to go on a 12 km fun run tomorrow!

Cool scenery boasts Singapore's highway bridge, the Benjamin Sheares Bridge. One major army event, and I can get to see many of my friends who are in doing their national service right now, because practically the whole of the NSF population is going to be running the 12 km.

Army Half Marathon Website

Residue pain

In aid of the noble cause of learning the life saving skill of poking one's buddy, my right forearm was brutally sacrificed.

The actual poking was stretched out over the whole of five days, but I got my turn only today. I was actually relatively relaxed, having watched more "murder-scene" like blood spots form on the floor, and the added experience of having donated blood meant getting pierced was a relative no-brainer for me.

My buddy took his time getting the catheter. After tying the tourniquet on my arm, he took his time pulling the latex gloves on and let it snap, showing me his favourite psychotic look. He proceeded to rub the alcohol swab across my arm slowly, not unlike a butcher fattening up the cattle before the slaughter. I ignored his deliberate attempts to unnerve me, and talked to one of my other friend (another psychotic, judging by the way he poked his own buddy a few moments ago).

Then, with the assistance of the medic, he started to penetrate my arm with the needle. A dull sensation in my fingers suggested to me that he hit my muscles instead of the intended vein. I could hear the medic asking him to shift the needle here and there, not unlike a navigation exercise. When he was done, my muscles were as sore as they would be after any gruelling training.

After a few minutes (well, sixty odd minutes) of recovery time from the muscle ache, and I was prepared to do the deed on my buddy. But being in such a high demand, he was invited to be another guy's victim while I was massaging my sore arm... Probably just as well he did, because I was really jittery about inserting foreign objects into another person's body. In fact, I was slightly traumatised by the thought. My new partner made it worse. He seemed kind enough, offering his arm to be poked.

The medic encouraged the match, and hailed the new partner's hand as the "fattest vein to ever be poked by a newbie". He turned out to be a mini-nightmare. He complained throughout the procedure:

"Wah, why is the tourniquet so tight? My arm is dying!"

"Can you hurry up? I cannot feel a thing!"

"Do you know what you are doing? Why is it so painful?"

I ended up speeding through the preparation and nearly dug the needle into his arm (that should shut him up!). I managed to miss his vein (it wasn't easy, with my needle hand shaking so badly; the medic asked me to relax for the umpteenth time), and had to conduct topography inside his skin, before finally drawing blood. He winced, and cursed at the pain. But it was a success. Later, my victim drew me aside and told me what a great experience he had with me compared to his last partner. It seems that his last partner managed to cause a swell of blood in his skin a few days ago, with painful results.

Perhaps I might make a great nurse, eh?

Needle phobia or fear of scary buddies?

I am pretty nervous about this coming week in camp.

Not only have they arranged for the close combat grading test to be this Thursday, they have also plonked us in the middle of a basic medic course. The highlights of the course includes poking intraveneous cathers into one's buddy, a skill which will be tested on (incidentally) Thursday!

I have not yet started on the actual poking lessons yet, but everyone is jittery about the whole thing. The senior medic who is conducting the course gave us a briefing last Friday, and he gave us a frightening demonstration of the actual poking on a guinea pig...

The poor guy was too frightened by the needle (well, it is VERY long!), and he thrashed about as the medic was inserting the cather. We ended up with blood all over the lecture room. In fact, the scene was not unlike that of a murder case. A few of my platoon mates nearly fainted at the sight of blood, while a few giggled. My guess was that they were trying to pretend that they are evil, to scare their buddies before the actual poking session tomorrow and on Thursday...

My buddy has assured me that he would try his best to target my vein (which would be a LOT less painful than if he were to poke it inside a muscle...), but failing which he would navigate the needle into the target... (I cringed at that, and he laughed his evil laughter.)

And in case you were wondering, it seems that all the guys here enjoy playing mind games with each other...

Let's Roulette!

Did you still remember the very first time you stumbled onto my blog? You might like to post it in the comments box.

Previously, we had to rely on search engines to search for blogs. Not that the approach is particularly flawed or anything, but what happens is that new bloggers get buried under the deep pile of search results, and since visitors rarely dig so deep, valuable gems get unpicked. And I know how it feels, to have splurged all your brain juice onto a cyberpage without any readers: My personal home page is a deserted backwater in cyber space.

Now blog providers are giving these new guys a chance. Introducing the random blog feature! tBlog has its "Updated Blogs" feature to allow visitors to view freshly updated blogs. Blogger now has a new feature that allows us to visit blogs on its network! Look at the mini-bar right at the top. Go ahead, give it a spin. Who knows, you might even find your long lost friend's blog!

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