Survival

Earlier in the night, I was catching "Getting Out Alive" on Discovery Channel, its a reality show where teams strive to survive Bear Grylls Style out in the wild and the ultimate winner will be awarded Half a million USD. So, I was watching the finale of it, the editing does not do much justice to the contestants as clearly they undergo tremendous stress and fear as well as whatever nature throws at them. The last leg of the show was pretty heart-warming as you can see the teams eventually helped each other as they grown to trust and respect each other during the 5 months though they are essentially competitors per say. When they finally reached the ending point, you can see the waves of emotion over their faces.

And then suddenly, my short stint outfield at Tekong, came flooding back to me. Even though its only 3 months, but the 3 months made quite a long impression on me. Though my Unit days were where bonds and friendships were forged, but BMT was where it had made the most life changing experience to me in my honest opinion. I can still remember how scared I was during the haunted thursday episode, the cold rain and commando mosquitos which are utterly relentless, the back-breaking route marches, the humiliation we were subjected to and the horrendous cold the weather threw at us. I can assure you, when I reached back camp, my mind was a total mess, running down naked along the corridors to the toilet to shower was still one of the most craziest thing I ever did in my life. My SIT(situational) test was another one that made an impact on me. It kinda bring out the leader in me especially the last mission, when my IC was down and in the end, only left me as the 2IC, and for some reason or another, I started to be more outspoken and rally my team mates around me to carry on the mission and surprisingly, people answered my rallies and we held on. In the end, I also manage to get them into giving cheers to our evaluators. Its just one of those things that I can't really explain as I am hardly a leader before in all my life.

All these experiences helped me to believe in myself more, whenever the chips are down, for some reason, I will turn back to my outfield days and tell myself that I didn't die there, I didn't quit( not that I had a choice anyways), I will not allow myself to give up now.

Similarly, I currently feel something of a fighting spirit in me stirring up. I remembered telling Cat that when I read Sam's Blog, especially her last entry, the one where she as facing problems at Credit Agricole. She told herself that she wants to be the best Credit Agricole Treasury Officer. She have to reach a point where she will want to try very hard to obtain many things. Currently, I am having the same feeling as well. I am not trying to aim to be the best inputter or anything but I want to at the very least say that after 1 year here, I am able to say that I understand and know most things. If possible, I will want to create systems to improve the efficiency in things there. I have created my own spreadsheets and fine tune it to suit the various situations and all. Of course, it is not fully able to tank anything under the sun, but it definitely made a lot of things way way much easier and faster. I know I will have to leave this place, I want to go somewhere else. The world is so big and I don't want to be kept here for too long. It kinda feels stifling if you ask me. The environment is not bad, but its so stagnant that I feel that its not healthy.

Problem now I am facing is that I have no idea where I want to move towards. Was thinking of taking CMFAS, but I felt that its just regulatory only unlike CFA which are more broad and more recognized overseas. I don't know whether I will stay in Ops a not, hence I did not volunteer to take IOC which my company provides. Felt that if I am not really interested in Ops, den might as well don't waste brain cells and time on it.

I guess I have to tell myself to keep achieving all the small steps first, like ensuring my goals are all attainable first. First up, will be my weight issue. Next up, will be my Resume, I will have to constantly spend some time to improve and think of ways to beef up my CV and read more. Where all these will lead me, I have no idea. But, this beats better den wasting time watching shows and all.