...

these days have been rather strange. I am out of the postman deal for a whlie. Instead i went to a smaller camp with some 20 other ppl from our camp (all or most of the divisions) for a week. We are supposed to be going there and guarding some heavy ammo for a week each time, twice a month. Nevermind that, in 3 months it's been only my 1st time there. One week with no contact with the outside world, no exit from the camp (warehouses basically), somewhere hidden in the mountains, all you have is your fellow soldiers.

Though i didn't have a bad time i am glad to be back in town. In fact, i have all sorts of philosophical approaches about the experience I am currently into, but this time after an intense army-week, something within me snapped. I more than ever feel that i have to talk, talk openly.

The army is like a brainwashing machine. You have to go just because you have to. And what kind of logical organisation takes people who have studied, worked in their lives, some of them have wives and kids at home, and places them in an environment where you actually learn nothing. At all. In an environment you want to get away from, from the first touch you have with it. You know, in the beginning, i said to myself that i should be patient. I should give it sometime, not be so negative, and see what i can gain out of it. Enough of that. I want out. But i can't get out of it. Or rather i can, but i should have to serve the remaining time sometime in the future, and i'm not willing to do that any more than i am willing to get it over with and be a civilian again in november.

The army is like big brother, you know, the tv reality game. It tests your ability to sustain yourself within 12 months you do nothing you want to do, being treated in the worst way possible, like you would never treat someone, survive within superiors and co-soldiers that can be anything close to people you would never want to meet, away from home, friends, job, girlfriend and anything at all that you love in life. Or almost anything. But you have to be patient. Stretch your limits, more than you imagine you could do. You basically learn how to be idle, how to obey orders, how to do things that are completelly irrational, and you know my problem. I am a numbers person. Logic came built-in in me, when i was born. I can't stand this. I can't stand having to wake every morning at 6:15 when you got almost nothing to do for the whole day. I can't stand having spare time when i am actually allowed to do nothing - not read a book, hang out or listen to music. People look at me like i am a UFO when i read after lights are out at night with my torch, but hey - that's my life-saving raft for now. That's keeping my brain working, my imagination vivid (along with the time i get to be off camp). I keep making plans for the future, and lets see how many of those i will bring to life.

But the contrast with my "previous life" is still too big. You can't change an organisation as discipline oriented and irrational as the army. Period. And this organisation basically teaches you how to avoid any kind of responsibility and opinion on things, which comes in contrast with both my character and what i carry as experience from my life before and during AIESEC, where a lot of things were paved under a lot of personal initiative from people, and endless effort to reach a goal.

Of course you meet people that are worth keeping up with outside camp as well. And that's just about the only benefit that you can have out of it, pretty big one under good circumstances. But something that can't soothe the feeling that you are actually absent from life for a complete year.

Anyhow, i am not in that bad of a state, i am more not doing so well on the psychological front. Some of my hair is getting white (!!!) over the past two weeks or three. I am very much looking forward to a change. Maybe when i get my transfer i will be somewhere close to home and i will be able to move some things around. That should be around the beginning of May.

In the meantime, I am counting the days for November 8th. 235 + today.