Tuesday, December 18, 2007!
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
Came back from work yesterday and now i'm having a week's leave and will be going back to work on Christmas.. Today's title is as u can see just above of this entry is related to my work 2 days ago.. Haha~! Kind of scary, painful and nice feeling that i have on that 24 hours duty..
First of all it came in with the "bad" because it was early in the morning when work haven't even started.. Since i have a week's leave, i have to get my leave forms sign by my Rota Commander but the fact was she hasn't arrived to work yet... So i went to look for my SecCom who shares the same dormitory with her and also at the same time asking for recommendation to go on leave.. Just so happen that i saw my RC coming towards the dorm and quickly asked my SecCom to let her sign when she entered the dorm.. That was a mistake i made because i'm actually bothering my RC even before starting work.. So my Rota was falling in for taking over of appliance when my RC came up to me with a scary face and my forms saying "Disturb me early in the morning, next time i will reject then u know!"(I think that's wad she said).. Although she did sign the forms, but that was kind of scary to see her seriousness.. Hardly i get see my RC's ugly side so that's why i feared a little even though she said it softly and with the serious face.. I shared with 2 of my SecComs about this but they said she is just joking, but it doesn't really look like she was joking.. -_-~!
Next came the "ugly".. This one hurt me real bad man.. Don't like it since it really hurt my pride.. It was just a simple task but my SecCom just couldn't ask me properly to do it, instead he shouted at me to do it.. Although he said sorry and was just joking, it kind of hurt since he added something else... He was holding the door open but i just stand there looking and waiting for an answer from the outside.. I felt that he stared at me awhile and then he shouted at me "Hold the door lah F%#ker! PTE right?"(My rank).. At the point of time it felt like an arrow just came through my heart and it hurts til my tears wanted to come out.. After that he laughed and said "Sorry Ben" with a smile.. I know he didn't mean it.. Just that when my rank was mentioned, it hurt my pride alot.. Because i missed my promotion last month, my rank stayed the same and i have to wait til next February for my promotion.. It really reminded me on that day when i missed my promotion.. Hurts like hell and took me sometime to stand back up with the Rota again.. I almost lost my faith with the Rota actually, but i realise that its none of my Rota mates fault, its just the admin guy who didn't submit my name for promotion..
And now comes the "good".. I was assigned to go to the fire post for standby.. Everything went normal and usual.. No fire calls so we all just did our own stuff and continued to standby the whole day.. Nightfall came and i was assigned to do desk duty from 11pm-1am.. I went to sleep after night lecture at about 9.45pm, but my sergeant woke me up at 12am and told me its my turn.. I was like "happy" because i only have to do desk duty for only an hour.. So 1am came and i went to wake my other colleague up to do the front desk duty.. When i came out from the dorm and headed to the front desk again, i saw a Civil Defence vehicle parking behind the Red-Rhino.. It was my Officer Commanding of my station.. I quickly went out to greet him and was commented abit by him for being alert and for not sleeping at the front desk.. I was like "Thank you sir" the whole time and after that he left... My colleague wasn't out from his bed yet and i ended up calling 4 times to get him out of his bed.. It was about 1.30am when he came out to do desk duty.. I was kind of pissed at that time but i couldn't be bothered with him.. In the morning at 5am when my section is up and awake, i told them that our OC came down at about 1.10am to check on us.. When we went back station, i was commented again from my Deputy Rota Commander for doing a good job looking after the front desk.. And that's when i heard that another Rota's fire-fighter was charged 5 days Detention Barracks for sleeping at the front desk.. I was like WoOT~! @_@~! I guess i'm lucky that i have my Nintendo DS with me all the time..
Haha~! So this is the entry of all that happen in just one day.. Kind of hilarious when i think about it.. Guess i got to put myself to be more alert in future duties.. Oh yes, i started playing back World of Warcraft and i bought a new Samsung S5 mp3 player for myself.. Just in case of my frens who doesn't know, dun be surprised when i have something new in my pocket.. CiaoZ~!
9:40 AM
NoWaKi
Thursday, December 06, 2007!
BAPT
Second day off today and i'm relieved that i have finished all the tests that this year has.. But my last one was a horror.. Really reminded me back of when i was a recruit in the fire-fighter course.. And that test is called BAPT(Breathing Apparatus Proficiency Test)..
Among all the test that existed in SCDF, BAPT was the most "xiong"(tough) test that i ever went through.. A test that really consist of mentality and endurance since the whole test we are wearing our full gear and BA on.. Basically the test consist of donning full bunker gear with the BA on within 1 min 15 secs.. That's the easy part and definitely everyone made it through.. Now comes the tough part of the test.. You will move on to a fitness room that consist of 4 stations.. They are called treadmill, impact machine, bicycle and the endless ladder.. My first station was the treadmill.. The easiest station of all where u just need to walk 7 km/h for 2 mins.. My second station was one of the tough ones which is the impact machine but still i made it through.. The station requires u to pull 25kg(using a pulley device) down from head to ankle 20 times within 2 mins.. It sounds easy and yeah.. We just need to use our body weight and a bit of our strength to pull it down.. But what matters is the breathing part where it makes your body difficult to workout.. The BA itself weighs about 13kg altogether and the air we breathe in is compressed air.. Our body's air intake for every breathing is about 3 to 4 bar(pressure) from natural/open air.. But the BA only gives u about 1 to 2 bar each time u breathe.. So after working out, definitely we will tend to breathe heavily and so i was breathing quite hard and fast through the BA(Not allowed to take out the facemask and if the air in the cylinder runs out before u finish the test, you fail)..
My next station was the bicycle and then i thought everything went the same way for me when i was in my recruit times.. So i rode the bicycle which was ok since i just need to maintain a certain speed for 2 mins, but its still tiring since it was after the impact machine.. And now here comes my worst nightmare.. The endless ladder~! This particular machine works as a moving ladder(like an escalator) and we have to climb at least 30m.. I was like so exhausted and it was hard for me to breathe.. And i was unlucky that the endless ladder was my last station(The endless ladder is the toughest station of all).. Climbing 30m within 2 mins.. Like i said it sounds easy, but its not.. I climbed my first 5m and it became as difficult as hell.. And then i realised i was climbing for free without the meter counting for about 20 secs.. I was like "what the hell" .. It was stuck at 5m until my head went up abit more then it started counting again.. I made it through and hit the 30m mark and it took me about 1 min 30+ secs.. I was starting to feel giddy, difficulty in breathing since not much air was given and tiredness has got into me.. The test was not done yet.. We still have to go through a maze called the "BA maze" where u have to work as a section to pass the maze.. I was in a dazzle when i came out of the fitness room to proceed to the maze.. My body actually went one side but i told myself to keep going and finish it off.. It was difficult and the maze is mostly in crawling position and is quite dark.. So carrying the BA with head mostly tilting up to see where u are going.. Its tough for the neck and now its aching bad.. To make it worse my BA facemask has lots of scratches on it so my vision became worse.. Since i was the second men, i was able to see the front person moving to wherever he went.. Teamwork was essential and it really shagged me out during the whole time..
The average time to complete the maze is about 8 mins and so after coming out of the maze, i went out to open air and took off my facemask.. Still exhausted and giddy, a fren of mine quickly pulled me to the water cooler to have a sip of water.. Everything was over finally and most of us went to eat lunch but i was too fatigued to be hungry and so i waited for everyone to come back before we head back to station.. I still felt giddy and fatigued even when i reached back to station til around the late afternoon that i started to feel better.. And yesterday i went home with my shoulder, neck, thighs and calves aching quite badly.. This is worse then IPPT.. Had my mum to massage me and i was screaming all over the place.. Yup and that's it for now.. Ciaoz~!
9:17 AM
NoWaKi
