The Day I Talk About My Airborne Experience

I'VE FINALLY JUMPED!!!

After living through the long, harrowing waiting hours in the aircraft hanger that followed with the feeling of disappointment when our jumps were cancelled, we finally made our first jump on Thursday. A total of 4 jumps were made over Thursday and Friday. Even though it was tiring (think walking about 2km with a really heavy load), the experience was unforgettable.



The MC1-1C Parachute that our lives were hanging on. Literally. That's not me by the way. I Googled this off the net.

Before boarding the C-130 (the aircraft we used for our first 2 jumps), I had a mental picture of my legs trembling uncontrollably when I stood at the jump door. Much to my surprise, nothing of that sort happened. Instead, I just stood at the door thinking "What the hell, let's just get over with it" and pooffft!, out I went. I can proudly say that I've rode on a slipstream before, and it's pretty damn fun!

Drifting down from the sky was very different from what I thought it would be too. I never knew how quiet it was up in the skies until then. You have the whole world to yourself for about 1 minute before reality hits you. By reality hitting you I mean hitting the ground, which still hurts even though you adopt a so-called "good landing position". But it's all worth it.

Seriously, if any of you get a chance at parachuting, DO IT! It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing that's worth every bit of sweat and pain.

The Day I Talk About "Never Again"

I was really looking forward to going airborne this week. Much to my disappointment, both our two jumps this week have been canceled due to terrible weather conditions on our jump days. Hopefully the weather clears up next week or we'll never get to pass out.

The celebrity that I'm giving cover treatment today is Kelly Clarkson. I realized that I've never really done an MTV review before, so I'm going to try my hand on one today. Kelly's "Never Again" has been stuck in my head for a pretty long time now. It's heavy with drums and cymbals, signaling her deeper foray into hard rock, which is her far cry from her original soulful sound. The MTV's pretty different from her previous ones, telling a really angry and somewhat confusing story.

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Kelly's basically screaming about how pissed off she is when she discovers she's being cheated on by her boyfriend/husband/"who-is-he?". Throughout the video, whenever she sings the word "face", there's a big close-up on her, guess what? Face.


"Say it right to my face!!!" face


Face. Again. "Face" should be the new "Vogue".

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In the song, she asks her supposed ex-boyfriend if it hurts to "see her face everywhere?" I'm wondering if it's because her face is so big, that's why he sees it everywhere?


Kelly says, "NEVER AGAIN WILL I KISS YOU!!!"
I'm thinking "thank God".


"Me wants eat you! YESSS! SEE MY FACE EVERYWHERE!!!"

Not sexy.

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Speaking of sexy, she does try to look sexy in a few scenes. Namely the ones where she's groping the K-Fed lookalike who's acting as her boyfriend/husband/something. One wonders why she picked someone who looked like K-fed to star in her video. Maybe it's a Britney jibe so she could go around telling her girlfriends, "Hey, everyone's like making fun of Britney and K-Fed right? I did it too! I like got this model from like somewhere and he like just totally looked like K-Fed! Like totally! Isn't it like totally like cool like?"


K-Fed.


Here's sexy.

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She's even done the whole touching-my-hair-cos-it's-oh-so-sexy move. Tyra would be so proud. I couldn't contain my excitement so I went ahead and made a .GIF of that timeless pose.


"I'm FIERCE!"

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Kelly was really all out to cash in on pop culture in this one too. Methinks that she's coveting Marcia Cross' role in Desperate Housewives. Here's why:


Bree


Bree (with awesome, shiny earrings)

Methinks she's channeling Sadako too!


One so pale should get out more.

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I'd say this video's pretty entertaining cos we get to see the many faces of Kelly (from rocker to emo to housewifey to ghostly, wow!) and watch her ridiculing herself repeatedly (think "Face"). "Never Again" certainly sends out one very clear message: Messing with Kelly (aka cheating on her) would make her face appear everywhere. So don't.


"I'll eat YOU up LICKABLE!"

She scary!

The Day I Talk About First Times (Part II)

The last time I had a "First Times" article was waaay back during the beginning of my Basic Medic Course. This time, it's about something slightly different. I have recently embarked on a new journey to a new camp for yet another course: the really physically demanding BAC (Basic Airborne Course).

First Time #1: Carrying A Parachute
Remember the first time you saw the Red Lions jump out of a plane thousands of feet in the air during the annual National Day Parade shows on TV and thinking "The parachutes on their backs look so cool!"? Well, that's what I thought too, until I actually had to carry one. First of all, it's nowhere as cool as the ones you've seen on TV cos it's a static jump chute (meaning that we don't actually have to yank the rip-chord off the chute when we exit the plane; the canopy is automatically deployed when we jump out). Secondly, it's less aesthetically appealing cos of its fully camouflaged prints. Lastly cos it weighs a bomb (if I'm not wrong it's more than 15kg). Talk about back-breaking weight.

First Time #2: Falling Down On Purpose
Yes, you read it right. We fall over front and back, left and right deliberately. But only during our landing drills, of course. It basically involves a series of coordinated leg and body movements that makes us fall in a given direction. This is done to equip us with the knowledge of proper landing techniques when we land in various wind conditions. Now, imagine yourself falling down with a 3kg helmet on your head. Imagine doing this fifty times and visualize the post-drill muscle aches on your neck, shoulders and butt. Ouch.

First Time #3: Calling everyone "AIRBORNE!"
This might not make sense. On the first day of the course, we were told to end our responses and verbal comments with a loud "AIRBORNE!" in order to keep our morale high and to be accustomed to shouting. Instead of pausing and then shouting the word "Airborne" like this: "YES SIR! AIRBORNE!", we shout everything together. In essence, we end up calling all of our instructors "Airborne" because our replies all sound like this: "YES SIR AIRBORNE!" "NO SIR AIRBORNE" etc. So basically all our instructors are known as "(insert rank here) Airborne". Which is quite confusing cos we hardly call out their last names and hence don't quite remember them. Can't really fault us. Heh.