maybe not packed and ready to go?

well. i thought i was mighty clever on sunday morning, having sorted everything out the night before. due to a highly unfortunate set of circumstances (primarily my not paying attention) i managed to leave the apartment with only half my kit, not including a towel, board-shorts, civvies or a pillow case. the last few days i've been showering with face towels and i couldn't get in the pool with everyone else on the most relaxed day of the year.

i did spend it in front of the telly, though - one of the movie channels had a kevin smith day :)

last night we had a group session that made things a little awkward. it was a forerunner for the sociometric, where everyone ranks everyone else. doing it on paper and anonymously is difficult enough, but to do it face to face got everyone on the defensive.

in particular, we've got a female NCO with us and i told her that she seems very sensitive to the point where i feel the need to be careful around her. i wasn't the only person to mention this, and her response was along the lines of "i'm not at all sensitive, you don't need to worry. i can handle and i welcome any observations" - exclaimed in a voice on the verge of tears.

well - that was my observation.

aside from the negative comments i received, almost all of them being over-conviction and stubbornness, one of the compliments really surprised me. the craziest guy in our course (great guy, but has a slight problem with authority) said that he sees me as a role-model... i still don't know what to make of that.

a short while earlier i had a private chat with our commander, who gave me some interesting insights - the primary one being that i need to learn to pick my battles. i was completely taken by surprise not just by how candid our conversation was, but by the fact that she appears to have come from a similar place.

not easy advice to take, either way.

so from monday's sandstorm spent indoors and tuesday's calm-but-clammy gardening in the bright sunshine to today's heavily humid arbitrary touring, it's been a short week and i need to hit the shower pretty urgently. the only reasons i haven't gotten off the computer:

1. our flatmate was showering first. he informed us last night that he's moving out early, which only adds to the joy of sorting everything out by the time our contract comes to an end.
2. i made the mistake of upgrading my ubuntu installation on the weekend, and it took me a while to get my pc to boot up windows again. i'm using windows to download drivers for my network card...
3. i *had* to finish doing the facebook thing :S

but that's all in the past, now.