Cleared my range for the yearly requirement yesterday. Seriously I headed to it without any expectations, my shooting for the past two years have been very bad - just scraping it through for both years. So I was expecting kinda the same.

No doubt I am managing what I was handling, I am not trained in the weapon. I am just using it to shoot for the third time. So my handling is not very steady. My colleague is very nice that she got a mentor to stand besides me when I was shooting to guide and encourage me.

I purposely shoot all my rounds for the practice on the smaller target to get my aiming right. And I took my own sweet time to aim and shoot. I knew that I am not a good shooter so I was just treating every shoot I made as very important and vital to pass.

When the shoot commenced, the encouragement is important. It kept me going and concentrated. And I feel very shiok and does my confidence level a lot of good when I keep hitting the target.

In the end, I not only got a pass, I earned my marksman, only missing three shots along the way.

It may be a simple feat for most, but to me, from last year's 13 to this year's 21, it is just so unbelievable. It made my day.