Reaching the end

I never imagined myself saying this: me thinking I'm the indomitable Craig, a firebrand that will surge through every obstacle and difficulty in my path, with resolve to never ever stop what I'm doing in service to my unit because my sense of responsibility could not be extinguished. But now, it is undeniably obvious that I have reached a state of nirvana: the ORD mood.

This is extremely wrong, considering I have 5 more months to go (okay if we look at it slightly more optimistically it's only 4 months, adding the offs and leaves before the ORD). I still have a substantial amount of time to go. But now I feel relaxed especially after how my 5 day MC incident seems to have changed the balance of things in my office, such that I do less now. For now, I have more important things I want to achieve before I leave, them being:

1) Get a mileage of 3000 before September so I have a chance of going to Ex Wallaby (my mileage now is 1000 thereabout)

2) Shape up so I can pass my IPPT and be promoted finally (and get back all the money I've been cheated of)

ORD-ing is not going to be very easy. I've realised there are a lot of issues that are tailing me like ruthless piranhas chewing on your boots, and I can name a few tricky ones off my fingers. My strategy is simple, if ppl in the army are deceptive then I'll have to deceive them back. Whatever it is, I have a lot of demons following me now that will be hard to shake off, all of them involving stores and all of them involving 1206 and money.

I think my army life has opened my eyes to the ugliest spectre of humanity, and it's sad that the things that the army stands for, like camaraderie, regimentation (which I believe is good), discipline, commitment, etc. are non-existent in my sphere of work. The culture is gross. It all stems from the fact that we have too many people who are just too unwilling to change their mindsets that NS is something they've got to do, that their whole way of life has been changed and that they might as well make the best of it. I owe all this to pampering. They always used to say you break down the soldier before you build him up, but after BMT people become too lax and where I work there're too many rights given such that they become wrongs. I myself have become too spoilt to do push myself to do higher and mightier things than what I do now. Fortunately there's one extremely slack guy I know who's actually not so slack, he's more heck-care, and he's taught me to learn to just take everything in its stride and not be so uptight. Feels gooood...

Anyway, for now I'm really really hoping that I can start to reclaim my life outside army after how badly it's been destroyed. I can't count how many relationships have gone cold ever since I entered, and I mean people who are really close to me. I've probably become like a shadow now, formless and dark. Craig with no being, no personality. It's like the end of the world coming true.

Anyway what nonsense. While these are times getting better, there are still many things that are left unresolved and I must strive to complete these last 5 months gloriously. At the end of it all, I'm sure I'll have something to smile about indeed. These have been the two most special years of my life.

Except for the weekend duties...