Sleep

I used to be able to survive on 4-5 hours of sleep every night back in secondary school during the exam period, due in large part to my last-minute-mugging tendencies. But I guess I'm getting old. For some reason, I could never do the same in JC anymore. Now whenever I don't get enough sleep, I'll suffer an acne outbreak and a lingering headache.

Lately I haven't been able to sleep much during weekends because of my busy schedule. And thanks to AHM saigang today, I didn't get to sleep through the night yesterday. To my utter dismay, the person in the mirror today looked terrible. I finally realise why some people say they need their beauty sleep...

I usually try to repay my sleep debt in camp, since it's the lull period and there's lots of down time. But for some reason, I just can't sleep in the day when I'm in camp, no matter how tired I am. Daytime camp insomnia, sianz. And we don't get much sleep at night because we have to wake up at 5.30am... Even when ORD is in less than 3 months' time.

Speaking of which, it doesn't seem like we're gonna ord so soon if not for the lack of outfields. We're still being treated like first-year soldiers: besides having to wake up so early every morning, we have to go for breakfast, march to and from the cookhouse, fall in every night for RO, book in on Sunday night, book out late on Fridays (because for some reason, events e.g. combat shoot, are always scheduled on Friday when most of the rest of the week is spent in bunk), and now there's even suggestion of having 5BX in the morning.

We are also not allowed to have TVs in our bunks (to encourage bonding in the mess, which has a non-functional TV...), not allowed to go to the canteen unless given permission (even after working hours), not given MC to rest at home but confinement in the sick bay when we get fever. And the list of privileges that many other units/camps take for granted but we are deprived of goes on.

And more recently, deliberate planning and scheduling has made it impossible for us to clear our off in blocks, so we have to resort to clearing off in the middle of the week, and in 1.5-day stretches at the most, "like bird droppings - a little here and and a little there", as my platoon mates put it. When every other ORD-imminent personnel has the liberty to clear long weekends and practically entire weeks if they want to. Sigh.

Some people just have no empathy. With all the bad karma and ill will they have accumulated, I shouldn't be the one having insomnia.