The week was predominantly taken up by rappelling and in the midst of this, we had to still find time to wash our equipment for the Australia trip. When I booked into camp on Sunday night, although I was having a little sniffle, I thought popping a Panadol Cold Relief pill and some shut-eye could curb the problem but how wrong was I. I’ll live to regret it the next day.
So, I woke up the next day feeling quite groggy but still well enough to get through the day. However, as the day wore on and we started on rappelling training in the afternoon, the cold virus begun to take its toll on my body. I was fatigued and aching all over but I endured. By then, I was running a fever of 38.8 degrees Celsius. After dinner, I popped a couple of Panadols and tried to sleep it off.
Fortunately, I felt much better on Tuesday despite still having a slight fever and feeling lethargic. It was a day for my body to recover its energy as there was no event scheduled for the day. Nonetheless, the commanders who went for rappelling at the tower in the morning completed their run earlier than expected, and since the weather was favourable, they wanted to bring forward Wednesday’s run for the rest of the main body.
However, Murphy’s Law came into play and the skies quickly turned gloomy. And even though we were rushed down to the rappelling tower, there was no defying Nature’s intervention as it poured relentlessly. Eventually, the programme was called off as the weather showed no sign of changing for the better. Luckily, I was already on the road to recovery and appreciated the much needed time-out.
Except for a little running nose, I was quite prepared and ready to take on the rappelling tower on Wednesday morning. Everything went quite smoothly other than the long waiting time when we had to endure the pain of the exceptionally-tight harness which we tied ourselves. The descent was exhilarating but what takes the cake was the first step over the edge which was especially memorable and frightful at the same time. That’s why the first step is always the hardest.
Though I don’t have a phobia of heights, I think it’s a natural human fight-or-flight reaction that when you get to the top of the tower and look down, your legs will involuntarily wobble like jelly. But once you get over that feeling, it would be easy to conquer your fear. The second part in which your body can get in the way is when you’re descending, and somehow, you’ll feel that your hands refuse to release the rope fully as much as you tried to. Hence, I didn’t really enjoy it as much as others who managed to overcome this psychological barrier.
Thursday was IPPT which I didn’t partake in as I wasn’t feeling well that morning. We marshalled for the longest time as the main body and training wing was split into 2 waves and some people were made to run again as they failed to meet the passing criteria. I think we stood there for close to 2 hours. Nothing much for the rest of the day except overseas preparations. We booked out after lunch as it was Cohesion Day on Friday.
Dragon boating at Kallang was the cohesion activity planned for us on Friday. To me, it was a totally new experience as I have not done it before. Well, there’s always a first for everything. We were separated into 2 waves as the seating capacity of the dragon boat could not afford more than 20 people. We put on our life-buoyancy vest, grabbed our paddles and jumped into the vessel. For the first 30 minutes, we practised on our strokes and synchronization before we embarked on a mini-race between the platoons.
As we started the race, we thought our platoon was at a slight disadvantage because we set off a distance behind the rest but time proved us wrong as our desire to win ignited like a spark and pulled us from the back to sprint to victory, narrowly beating another boat as they fizzled out in the last lap of the race. In fact, we didn’t think we would come in first or second because our platoon was physically smaller than the others. So, this goes to show that size does not matter because with the right mentality, you can beat the odds.
After the event ended, some of us had our own cohesion activity as we proceeded to the Civil Service Club at Tessensohn Road to bowl, something we hadn’t done before as a platoon. Although the turnout wasn’t that great, it was still a healthy number and shows good prospects for future outings. We then made our way to Parklane to engage in some LAN gaming fun before heading for dinner. It was pretty much an enjoyable day. We should have more good times like this!