Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 -

To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:

A time to be born,
    And a time to die;
A time to plant,
    And a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill,
    And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
    And a time to build up;
A time to weep,
    And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
    And a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones,
    And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
    And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to gain,
    And a time to lose;
A time to keep,
    And a time to throw away;
A time to tear,
    And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence,
    And a time to speak;
A time to love,
    And a time to hate;
A time of war,
    And a time of peace.

Perhaps due to impact created by the overwhelming use of anaphora in this bit of scripture, I find it a particularly apt way to start off my recollection of what happened during my last week in BMTC - I'll keep this (relatively) short; there's still a barrage of other posts that'll come in these 2 days.

02.04.12 Despite having less than a day out of camp following my guard duty shift, the night before (1 April) was still quite a decent evening - my spirits were up, and it was that sort of emotions that I hoped to have on the 2nd of April - one where I felt uplifted, positive and possibly even empowered as a result. I don't know how a day of rain exactly creates such an effect, but I felt tossed into the (somewhat) depressing world of both Housekeeping and the moors of Wuthering Heights. Perhaps I'm being hyperbolic here. To be honest, apart from the rain, and the returning of our UMPCs (that marked the end of after-RO internet usage), there was nothing eventful in the morning - the rain killed off the only supposedly eventful one: 5BX. Subsequently, the afternoon was spent doing drill practices (thankfully, at the COY-line), and dinner had broccoli (courtesy of the vegetarian side of the cook-house; I needed it to mitigate the damage that a fried-food-filled dinner would do to my throat). Upon returning from the cook-house, some dumb chap decided to "semula" (spelling?) another platoon - good grieves, why can't you simply not mess with others unnecessarily; that led to us being made to march on the spot for quite a bit, thankfully it wasn't excessively tiring.

03.04.12 I woke up realising that the 'sore throat' I had the day before wasn't simply just a sore throat - it was symptomatic of a flu that I was developing. An excellent way indeed to start the day - and one that definitely affected how I felt the rest of the day. While we were rehearsing our drills (for our Graduation Parade) during the day, I spent practically half of the time either sniffling or sneezing. It was terrible, a state that was made only a little better by the breezy morning (the calm before the storm, which ironically here refers to the unyielding heat of the afternoon). The flu (technically, cold would be a more appropriate term) bug that is going around is simply unstoppable, and it strikes swiftly and relentlessly. Taking my temperature at the end of the day, I realised I had a fever - 38 degrees, definitely not a reassuring sign. I wasn't sure what to do, or how to react to that; going to the MO would mean a definite end to my chance at doing the 24km march, and by extension, my participation in the parade.

04.04.12 My initial plan in the morning, as Sir Shaunald (gosh that makes him sound like he got knighted) suggested the night before, was to not see the MO, to wait until Thursday and to see my own doctor outside of Tekong. In the meantime, I would simply give the day's rehearsal a miss. Judging by how terrible I felt under the heat the day before, following this plan seemed a good idea - one that gave me the best hopes of competing the march on Saturday-Sunday, and doing the parade after. Yet that was thwarted by the inflexibility of the army system - I'm not blaming the commanders here - in order for me to miss an activity, I had to receive an excuse from the MO. I knew for sure that would mean an end of my chance to POP (yes, I'm using the acronym for Passing Out Parade as a verb despite it being a noun), but what was I to do; participating in the rehearsals wouldn't do my flu and fever any good, at least in the former, I would get some medication, and possibly the chance of negotiating with the MO. I was wrong however about the last bit - the moment the MO diagnosed me with having a viral infection, what was handed to me was a 5 days excuse from heavy duties (i.e. the march), dismissing my suggestions at a Friday re-assessment. That effectively ended my chance at POP-ing. At that particular point in time, I felt deeply conflicted about my fate - on one hand, I was relived (but not thrilled) that the burden of the 24km march was lifted from me, yet I felt it a tremendous shame to lose the opportunity to take part in one of the quintessential experiences of BMT (both the march and the parade). But what's done was done - the doctor's decree was final, and all I could do was to accept it, irrespective of the torrent of emotions swirling in my heart and mind. Breaking that news to my parents wasn't exactly easy - I knew how much my mother (and to a lesser extent, my father) wanted to see me at the parade, and as expected, my mother did not take it too well (though that only manifested itself in the subsequent days).

05.04.12 - 07.04.12 Being given a status (Attend B: Light duties in my case) effectively stripped me of the need to pay any more attention to any future briefs on the parade - basically, the moment that I left Tekong at 1.30pm on Saturday, I had passed out, sans a parade. That was something that my mother resented tremendously (for reasons that are undeniably numerous), and she made it known. As for myself, I had resigned to my fate, silently assured that I was freed from the burden that the 24km march would bring, but also tormented by the feeling that my BMT days did not receive a proper closure, that I had missed out on events that would prove defining and deeply memorable.

But I believe that there is indeed a time and place for things in accordance to His plan, that my position (of missing the parade), strange as it may be to put it in this manner, was a part of the Lord's plan for my life. That there was a time to 'chiong', and a time to place my health above all other pursuits. There was a time to strive, and a time to accept defeat, a time to suffer, and a time to reap the harvest of one's effort. Truly, BMTC hasn't been an easy feat - especially for me, but I also accept it as a phase of my life that the Lord has allowed me to go through, to learn from and to grow from.

I'll only know whether I truly made the right decisions in the future, when I reexamine this chapter of my life, but till then, I surrender everything that I'm going through, and will go through into Your hands.