{ 👁️PPT }

Nothing like getting up at 6am on a Saturday for my IPPT 👍…. 🫩

Thankfully, Khatib FCC is somewhat near my house. There’s still a 20 min walk after alighting at the nearest bus stop however, becos army camps are all in the middle of nowhere. Oso, idk how long more I’m gonna have dis privilege…

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Anyways, I’ve never rlly trained for my IPPT after basic training period (where everyone’s sorta hyped and motivated to do so). 3 reasons for doing so:

Firstly I am relatively fit, so it’ll take quite a drastic change to my body for me to fail.

Secondly I am a petty man. The last time I trained hard for it they made me an admin guy. So I pledged to never work hard for them anymore 😤.

Thirdly, I just tend to forget abt my IPPT booking, lol. Until they notify me a few days b4, and I’m like o shit. And at dat point there rlly isn’t any point to try and train.

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Reporting there wif a whole bunch of dudes in dat run down building is always interesting. Even though everyone comes in various different ages, shapes, and sizes, we all have the shared experience of doing random military / police / firefighter bullshit for 2 years.

So while they’re just sorta quiet and in zombie mode, there’s dis weird sense of camaraderie. Whether ur looking at the bald uncle or the fresh baby-faced uni student, everyone just sorta feels like a brother…

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Some boomers (and increasingly younger dudes) like to think dat ppl are only Singaporeans if they had served NS. While dats abit of narrow outlook, I can see where they’re coming from.

NS is a very specific Singapore experience dat nobody else rlly goes thru. While serving the nation is the main point, it’s the in-between moments (whether good or bad) dat rlly makes the “NS experience”. Filled wif joy, anger, excitement, sadness, and every possible contrasting emotions.

Bonding thru shared suffering is a real thing. Being a very safe country, we dun rlly have disasters and shit. So NS provides the only time for most of guys to rlly go thru communal suffering at a somewhat prominent scale. Honestly, idk how to feel abt dat…

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Ofc, dat rule of being a true “Singaporean” straight up ignores the other half of our population (our XX chromosome friends). It oso ignores our friends dat genuinely are unable to serve due to legitimate reasons. I dun think it’s fair to look down on them just cos they didn’t do their time. Becos truth be told, if not made mandatory, most of us dudes wldn’t do it anyway 😈…

Anyways, the IPPT went alrite. But during the sit ups I was holding in a fart. And if u ever tried doing so, you’d noe it’s not easy. So I think dat affected my performance a lil bit.

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Besides dat, the blazing 8:30am sun was oso abit of a pain during the 2.4km run. But thankfully nobody died of heat stroke, so das great…

My shoelaces oso came loose during the run. So I wasted like 10 seconds getting it tied. Gotta rmb to not wear those shoes next time…

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So IPPT is done. Gonna enjoy the rest of my Saturday, right? Wrong. Cos my intern place requires me to work OT today 🤬🫩. Life is a beach ⛱️.

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14.03.2026