two more days to be forgotten

right - on top of a long day in the sun, i've had a bit too much too drink. all's okay... i think...

yesterday:

i arrived on base at 10am. i had a long talk with my commander, and explained that i'm not a normal soldier and i really do need a little consideration when it comes to instructions that leave us stuck on the base until late.

i went to the dba section for a meeting, and they were THRILLED to see me. honest. i'd gone to ask a simple question, and we discovered that our database was so badly designed that it was full of critical errors that needed to be dealt with IMMEDIATELY.

a couple of hours pass...

had lunch with the team, and the rest of the workday got split into lots of flirtation with the girls in the nearby prefabs and arbitrary work assigned every now and then by the team leader.

went off to get my uzzi for guard duty.
the first ceremony took ages, 'cause they've added new sections to the list of obvious things that everyone knows, but has to be told anyway. that killed us.
i got volunteered to lower the flag, which sucks. i still don't have a clue how to do it - the fact that nobody else does either doesn't make me feel any better about it.

prepared for guarding (got my shit together, organized a sleeping bag), and after a mediocre supper joined the rest of the guards for the formal shift start. then i crashed (6pm).

i was woken at 8.30pm by a creepy-crawly sensation. ants, hideously large ones (we're talking mutants here). hundreds of them. that was very unpleasant. i spent the next 1.5 hours milling around and not sleeping, and then went up to guard.

my shift absolutely FLEW by. i read the whole way through, and thoroughly enjoyed every second. amusingly, i was totally busted. first by the guard commander - after catching me reading with a cigarette (two forbidden things), we spent half an hour talking about the few years he spent in south africa. about half an hour later, his second-in-command arrived, examined the book, asked how it was, and left.

i'd received a really odd waterbottle, that looked like something one would expect out of a kiddie's lunchbox. so during the shift - the dog had fallen asleep in the office, and woke up around 11pm - the dog explained to me that it was a waterbottle generally issued to members of his unit. so i found a marker and turned it into "nachlawimon - gotta catch 'em all!". it came out great.

i chilled with the next shift before going to bed, and i slept like a baby.

today:

i was up at 7am for food, and had breakfast (1 boiled egg) playing gta2 in my office. at the closing ceremony, two girls were volunteered to raise the flag, and much silliness ensued as one of them refused. very cute.

instead of getting some more sleep, i was hurriedly sent off to replace girls who were guarding one of the gates - totally not okay for them to guard, apparently. sexist, if you ask me. and it was only an extra 1.5 hours on duty, so why should i complain? or, at least, why should anyone pay attention to me complaining?

i spent the first hour or two with the usual guards... it was cool... until one of the security officers caught me. and took down my details. and sent me off to be court-martialed.

sick fuck.

so i was completely panicked, and had no idea what to do. our section commander managed to get himself locked in a toilet stall for about half an hour, but managed to get out just in time to help me out, and actually stood with me during the proceedings. i was nervous as hell, and was stuttering in hebrew - didn't understand much of what the judge was saying. but it ended alright - so i don't care. i'm just pissed off that i was there at all... the guy who caught me out of my post has been screwing soldiers over left and right since he returned from the disengagement...

and, after the court-martial, i resumed guarding. nice, huh?

i got my head shaved, then went to sleep. DAMN, but i slept well. at 4pm returned my weapon and hurriedly cleaned my waterbottle (scratching marker off is unpleasant) to avoid another court-martial.

i got roped into 4 hours of AMAZING volleyball, and spent some time afterwards coaching one of the guys who's playing with us in the inter-wing tournament.

the dog and i came back to my place, tekkened a bit and took turns showering, then went off to play pool at the lincoln. good pool, too much to drink.

that kid provides me endless, but i mean ENDLESS entertainment. he was about to miss his bus home, so he ran... and his soldier's id card fell out of his pocket. so he missed the bus, and then spent the next while walking up and down the street searching for the card. when he got home, he discovered that he'd also dropped his house keys...

i was going to work, but i'm broken. good night.