Finally... the first week at the Engineer Training Institute, Basic Training Centre, Specialist Training Wing (whew, long name) is over. Time really slows to a crawl when you're in-camp, and ETI is the worst compared to BMT and SISPEC. Each day feels like three days.
The current training we undergo is mostly theory and practical based training, and is centred around explosives, demolitions, charges, and the like. Currently, we are undergoing a basic four-week course, and the entire schedule comprises of lectures, more lectures, some practicals, few outfields, and even more lectures. Whereas we suffer from physical exhaustion in SISPEC, ETI subjects us to mental exhuastion as we mindlessly copy down lecture notes for the entire day. Yeah, pretty much the entire day. On Tuesday, for example, we had lectures from 8am to 12am or so, had lunch, and had lectures all the way until 8 or 9 pm in the evening. To give an even better idea of how theory-intensive the past week was, I've already used up half a SAF black notebook in a week, when I barely used half a notebook for the entire Basic Section Leader Course back at SISPEC. Yeah, it's that bad =p
There are many other things to complain about as well. The bunks are really small, and it felt slightly claustrophobic when we first entered. There are only two fans, and the windows are small and only on one side of the room, so that made things worse. Moreoever, the bunk corridors and stairs were enclosed spaces unlike the open stairs and corridors that BMT and SISPEC had. As for the toilets, they were big, but cubicles and shower rooms are few compared to SISPEC, plus the entire platoon shared a single toilet instead of 2 toilets. As a result, we have to queue up for about 15 minutes each time we want to take a bath.
Cookhouse food is somewhat similar to SISPEC's food given the fact that the caterer is the same, but somehow the food seemed less tasty, and the fruits and syrup often ran out.
The place also calls for quite a bit of discipline, but some rules are just... weird. White socks cannot be folded, for instance. Footdrill had to be good, if not we were made to march around the parade square. It somewhat felt like we were recruits again. Kinda makes me miss how SISPEC treated us like future commanders and therefore gave us trust and freedom to do tasks on our own.
The commanders there are nice in general, but are just... a tad too boring. There aren't any goofy characters like 1SG Phoon, no commanders who use uncommon expletives like 1SG Jameson, nor humourous characters like Staff Faizal (who should be in Brunei by now).
K, that's quite a lot of complaints. Hopefully I can find the motivation to survive this 4 weeks of basic training and the following 7 weeks of specialised training >.>
Summary of the week? Lots of lectures, played with some demolition materials, burned my finger a little when lighting a fuse, and did ok for IPPT training. Not a very interesting experience at Nee Soon Camp so far.
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kheng yong; 19th dec 88
[x] Ashley
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