shorn (of the living)

she shaved me. i'm certain the doctor who referred me arranged this all just for fun. she shaved me.

i've got a lot to write down:

getting to the new base wouldn't have been a problem... i entered the train station with a minute or two to spare, fully laden with all my gear - except, of course, my rifle.

whoops. to make matters worse, one of the officers from the previous leg of the course lives in the neighbourhood, saw me unarmed, and reported back to my commander. at least it didn't go any further than a mouthful from her.

so that delayed me a solid hour, stressed me out no end and between the heat and my low blood pressure i wasn't feeling so hot. when i finally arrived there was a problem with my secondment papers. i arranged for them to be sent over, and it only took the girls on the new base a week to get them to me.

in theory i should've sat outside the gate for that entire week, which quite frankly would've been less of a waste of time and far less frustrating. for the last ten days i've been back in basics, only with less useful commanders and this time i can actually (unfortunately) understand what everyone's saying.

as a point of interest, i've rediscovered the synagogue, and i'm now a regular for the morning services - i've even re-learned how to put on tefilin.

that reminds me, i had an irritating run in with a couple of american "do-gooders" who spend their days running after people coercing them to wrap up. they were patronizing and repulsive, and quite frankly we could do with less of them. i'm strongly of the opinion that belief is great and religion stinks, and they're definitely leaning hard on the latter side of things.

the second day in the blazing heat saw me incredibly sick, but the doctor calmed me down, explained that it was just the blood pressure and prescribed sleep until the next morning. since then i've been all good, i've been consuming loads of chocolate and sugar, drinking lots of coke and fighting over salt at every meal.

speaking of which, the food is awful. there was one morning when breakfast was excellent, all the rest of the meals have been barely edible.

i scored myself a black mark on the second day: my sat-phone, always on silent, made loud beeping noises in class after we were warned not to carry communication devices. not cool.

sitting in a class on a topic that i know too much about, desperate to pee. i raise my hand on a slide with five of ten items:
commander: "wait for the next five"
... i wait agitated for five minutes...
commander: "okay, next five, write them down"
... i wait, bouncing up and down, no pen and paper in sight and couldn't care less...
... i wait, staring desperately at the commander...
commander: "are you done?"
me: "yes."
commander: "okay, you can go."

i know he knew that i wasn't planning on writing anything.

for the physically challenged (me and my slipped disc), running is strictly verboten. if you're familiar with the usual warm-up exercises, such as raising knees to chests and feet to buttocks, then try to imagine a group of people silently performing those actions while walking.

it's unbelievable how childish and uninteresting our platoon is. i can't help but be continually disappointed. they're too embarrassed to sing during the exercises (and i came up with some really amusing marching songs), but have no shame when it comes to being loud and rude in front of external instructors. superb.

last week i had an appointment near my old base, which gave me a bit of a break. the doctor checked me out, stopping awkwardly when she registered my piercing. when she was done, and satisfied that i'm otherwise healthy, i overheard her remark under her breath to her assistant: "that was fun!"

mosquitoes, mutated spiders, snakes and scorpions: we're living in tents in the desert, and we have them all. boots must be sealed with socks at all times, and there's no such thing as getting into bed without giving the bedclothes a good shake.
and painful lesson number one: sleeping in a sleeping bag in the middle of a heatwave is NOT comfortable.

the group leaders, little girls with no concept of command or proportion, have ruined the experience for me. they're supposed to be teaching us stuff, and all they're doing is distracting us with irrelevant crap or shouting at us because we don't behave as they expect us to. if they'd enforce discipline instead of whining about the lack thereof then maybe i'd be sympathetic. and i'd definitely have learned all the material within a few days if not for them, right now i'm behind and aggravated.

i left the previous course with high morale, having thoroughly enjoyed it. the review brought me down, and the new course has me constantly pissed off.

the range: my grouping sucks. otherwise a fun day in the sun.

shabbos (the sabbath): both friday night and saturday morning i joined in for the whole toot, and i haven't done that since 1996. it was enjoyable and i even managed to convince some of the sephardim to sing ashkenazi songs - our tunes are simply more musical.

saturday night: three and a half hours of scrubbing dishes as efficiently and properly as possible, and doing my job too well. irritated that the girls in the next section were wasting a lot of water unnecessarily after i showed them how to do it. i'm still upset that i overheard one kitchen-worker verbally abusing another over not doing his job and didn't intervene. that won't happen again, but it shouldn't have happened the first time.

exhausted after the dishes, i slept for four hours and then got up to guard. the guy on comms was either napping, or couldn't get the hang of pushing to talk - i kept repeating myself until he responded, and everytime he responded he sounded irritated as all hell. the mosquitoes drove me crazy (as they do everyone), and the guy who was supposed to relieve me didn't, so i scored an extra shift when i was already bushed.

on my way back to the tent i looked at my left shoulder, and was horrified to discover a giant spider-beast legs-up on my epaulet. i think i may have crushed him with my cheek at some stage.

we ran a basic war simulation, and someone asked about getting lost in enemy territory. the commander's response went along the lines of: "we're not going to be travelling around the enemy countryside for fun".
a little later, in response to approaching the closing point of the simulation, i asked (completely innocently): "after the war, will we be able to tour the enemy countryside for fun?"
he was staring at me while everyone else laughed, and the pressure to not crack a smile was tremendous... i just don't learn :P

as the days go by, the leaders assume that we get stupider. a few days ago they began to instruct us on how to go about eating in the mess hall.
"everyone, take a plate. then take a knife, a fork and a spoon. stand in line. take the food you want as you go by. take a cup. fill it with water. find a seat. eat. if there are any problems, let us know."

we figured that shit out ourselves, thanks.

yesterday i paid the doctor a visit. i had to wait a half an hour to see him, and after sitting down he ignored me for a further twenty minutes. then he took my details, disappeared, and came back five minutes later to tell me that as he's not my unit doctor he's not allowed to help me. it took another five minutes to convince him to answer a general procedure question. and then i had to explain to the commander what took me so damn long.

this power-walking shit is insane. and the frightening thing? i'm good at it. i can walk almost as fast as i jog. it's strenuous, uncomfortable, and it looks silly, so i'm sticking to the back of the line and attempting to increase morale.

we had to sit through a first-aid lecture (no, really, this is exactly like basic training). firstly, i'm amazed that i remembered that we only use about 5% of the oxygen that we inhale, because the only time i've heard that was during a first-aid course we did in kindergarten.

like, wow. some things just stick.

after semi-randomly linking to rabies, the instructor mentioned a youtube video of an infected man. i couldn't find it amongst all the kids playing silly buggers, so if anyone can send me a link i'd be grateful.
smart guy, the instructor, really funny and filled with all sorts of interesting tidbits concerning dangerous animals and different forms of toxins.

what was amusing was his demonstration of the "russian" bandaging technique. he got one of the guys to stand up and drop his pants, then pulled out two long bandages and a mean looking stick. i was convinced he was about to crack the guy one in the 'nads.

i was hurriedly packing to leave the base yesterday when one of the kids came around to chat. he asked why i was stressing, and i explained that i had to figure out what to leave behind in case i get called back at the last minute to close the weekend on base.
"dude, they're never going to do that to you. just pack all your gear and head on out, we'll see you on sunday!"
i looked at him, laughed, and asked him how long he's been serving before stating that one thing is certain with permission to leave base, and that's that there's never a guarantee that you get to use it. when i left my commander specifically stated that there's no point in my coming back before sunday and wished me a good weekend. this afternoon he called me to tell me to come back tomorrow afternoon.

the ride back home was hot and tiring.

this morning i woke up at 5.30am, got into uniform and missioned off to sheba hospital.

a) the signage there sucks, everyone's aware of the problem and nobody cares enough to do anything about it.
b) i got to the place listed on my referral at 7.30. the woman at the reception desk told me to come back at 8am when reception opens, and i asked if i could just verify that i've arrived at the right place. "yes, yes," she assured me, and i sat down to wait the half an hour (my appointment being for 8am).

at 8am i stood up, waited patiently to speak to the lovely lady (it took a while for her to see me, it's because i refuse to scream and shout like mr. average israeli), and discovered that i was, in fact, on the exact opposite side of the hospital from where i needed to be.

"oh, well," she says, "don't be stressed".
cow.

i got to the right place, and went through the echocardiogram. educational, watching and hearing my heart beat, and it's a surprisingly healthy and happy heart. the doctor asked me if it was alright if her assistant performed some experiments on me, with only a slight pause before explaining that she needs practice using the equipment.

holter. sadistic bastard. i'm strapped up, with a shaved square of my chest, my dog-tags trapped and tangled along with my nipple-ring in this weird, semi-fishnet brassiere that keeps the test package and tubes strapped in and my body from a washable state. i look like a reject from a manson video.

to make life more interesting (what could be more interesting that being strapped up in the heat and humidity and having things to do), i have to make a list of all the activities and times performed for the day.

for instance:

9:17 - not feeling good. this is about five minutes after being hooked up, waiting my turn to update my address.

10:58 - almost crashed. the bus driver pretending to be in a formula one vehicle, weaving at high speed.

11:24 - falling over waiting. this is me standing for half an hour waiting for the sister in charge at the city officer to tell me that i didn't actually need her permission to cancel my appointment, in direct contradiction with all the listed rules.

12:39 - golden axe. like, DUDE, i played golden axe in the games arcade! antique! i still suck at it, though.

13:05 - lunch. i ran into my teammate, so while he drooled post-dental i stuffed myself with bamboo'ed steak. while waiting for him, i acquire a few dvd's from tower records:
rambo first blood
rambo ii
hamburger hill
terminal velocity
teenage mutant ninja turtles
the last samurai

13:29 - phone call back. so this is me, no longer excited about a few days to study, rather annoyed at having to go back and be tested when i'm not ready.

14:15 - 14:50 - abe's. exoddus, that is. my memory card works, only it's a game that requires a bit of effort.

-> 16:00 - sleep. passed out completely while trying to learn something, woken up by the landlord to groggily help fix the toilet. yeah, i now know how to fix it myself. his kid was with him, totally awed by my boondock saints poster and begged to borrow the box set. i told his father it's on his head ;)

17:12 - mom. first stage whinging: complete.

18:45 - food. our flatmate made really, really salty tuna vegetable mix.

19:35 - course commander. second stage whinging: complete. since the end of the course we've been getting along much better, so much so that i actually enjoyed chatting with her.

20:00 - 22:10 - blogging. and chatting online with wolfman, and doing that facebook thing. i gotta get some more studying done, though.