Seventh Cycle - Day 1

The Seventh Cycle has officially begun and this time round, things didn't go according to how I thought they would.

So usually for my Reservist, I will always have this one friend who accompanies me during the cycles, almost like security blanket for socialization, but then this morning when I went to book in, I realize that we were put into different groups because of the Covid situation. 

We don't break into groups at the start, usually the groups will only get broken up into after the initial few days of training and usually my friend and I will go to the same group, the other group will then head to another more obscure and difficult to reach location to do their reservist duties. I have never considered going to that more obscure location before because it is extremely inconvenient if you do not have a car, the nearest bus stop is almost 2km away so it just didn't make sense for me to volunteer myself even though it is supposedly a lot more relaxing there because of the reduced traffic.

Well, I didn't have a choice for this cycle because after booking in, I was just told that I was part of group B and I notice my friend was part of group A, at the start I didn't really know what the group meant, but then it clicked and as I was walking to the briefing room for group B, I ran into my friend and shared the bad news with him, he told me it probably isn't what I think it was, and so for that short moment, I tried to tell myself that they are just breaking us into 2 equal groups to do the training, and once that training is over, then we will be properly broken into the 2 groups to decide who goes where. 

But then the more I thought about it, the more redundant it sounded, why would they bother breaking us into 2 groups, only for us to combine so they can break up into 2 groups again. It really didn't take long for me to come to the realization that this will be the first cycle were I will be going solo, but there is always a first time for everything.

The briefing itself was so dull, and it's made worst by the fact that I had no one to talk to, I did have someone at the start, but it was only temporary because once his friends joined him, I just wasn't very interested to be part of the conversation anymore, his circle of friends are those gangster ah beng type that I really do not want to be a part of, and then after that, he went to defer and was successful, so he left about 2 hours later. 

At that point, I was truly flying solo, I was barely talking to anyone, I knew a few faces but I have never spoken to them during the last few cycles before so it felt weird to just pop into their conversation. It was such an arduous morning / afternoon, the breaks felt like they were taking way too long, lunch wasn't great, but the upside is that the room was fully air-conditioned, so I wasn't feeling all oily and sleek.

As the day went by, the idea of being able to stay the night felt more and more impossible, then the thought of having to move all my things that I have brought over today, including my change of clothes, my towel, slippers, toiletries, the bullet vest, to the obscure location the next day, it just felt so tiring. During the last few cycles, I never had to worry about that, I would just leave them in the bunk and only worry about them maybe 2 weeks later when the cycle is over.

Finally, towards the end of the day, our timetable was finally shared and the workload this cycle really isn't too bad, it is probably 4 times lighter than usual because of Covid and we are given long enough breaks in-between our duties to really go home, it really feels like I am going for a regular 9 to 6 job, except instead of having to go everyday, I only need to go maybe once every 3 to 4 days, which is pretty much like my current job's schedule and I will have to take a taxi instead of the bus.

Staying in today was also not an option, the commander made it extremely clear at the end of the briefing that no one is allowed to stay in, so I had to go home and that is why I can't blog about the first day today, this means that for the next 2 weeks of reservist, I will be able to sleep in my own bed every nigh, not such a bad thought, just not a huge fan of the huge taxi bill I will be incurring.

Tomorrow will be the official start of my duty, so I will see how shitty it gets.