operational goodbye

after a perfect nap, and a great night on wheels, i slept perfectly. i didn't wake up until way after first coffee. carcolepsy was unavoidable :P

dragging the kit bag around today was inconvenient, but i do believe in "better safe than sorry". i can't help but laugh at myself for being so unnecessarily organized, sometimes :)

nystire put last night's idiot-girl aggravation into words: "aggressive defence of ignorance". i think that's an excellent description.

i spoke to tel aviv university's grad school secretary on behalf of a cousin who's looking to apply, and the discussion we had was quite interesting. it revolved around the differences between "2nd" and "3rd" degrees and "masters", "honours" and "doctorate" (nope, no resolution), and the inconvenience of studying in a foreign language.

i finished a task today that caused the 1.5 days of potentially wasted work i mentioned yesterday, and once i realized what i had to do it took all of five minutes. oh, well. i should probably care more.

i'm ashamed to have achieved a number of important milestones in my secondary project without any design whatsoever. i began to sketch uml this afternoon for the rewrite, and i am ashamed that i've spaghetti'ed it all together until now. i would never have considered something like this before - i can't rightly explain what got into me. it's becoming more and more complicated to incrementally incorporate decent design modules, but at least the uml seems to be clearing things up a bit.

i will never laugh at uml again.

i got into working uniform for the first time since march, and it felt great! unfortunately, it's most likely the last time i'll be putting it on, and i'm not sure how i feel about that. i've always hated serving in dress uniform, and i've always enjoyed playing soldier.

i was made bus commander on the way to the range, the driver was shocked that i could assume command without complaining when i hadn't been given a chance to "prepare". what was there to prepare? how to deal with a bunch of brats who can't sit still or count past ten? no problem. i even managed to cut off the shitty phone music effectively ;)

unfortunately, as "BC", i had to be aware of my surroundings and i really wanted to pass out, just like everyone else :P

i wasn't kidding about the counting limitation - everything at the range went smoothly (surprisingly so) except for getting the kids to stand in order of their assigned numbers. okay, so the first time it may have been a bit complicated for them to perform the comparisons, but the second? and the third?! all they had to do was stand more or less where they'd been the first time!

the girl who i think has a crush on me (nyah-nyah) and i burst out laughing, from where we were standing the range commander's tent looked exactly like a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant!

the sunset was gorgeous, but blurred. i want my eyes to perform as they did when i was a kid! i've become more and more reliant on my glasses of late - i need an ocular vacation.

standing in formation at the end of the evening, i couldn't help myself. i *had* to squeeze the cow attached to nyah-nyah's bag... a suddenly loud mooing had her cringing [i wanted to write cowering, then thought better of it] and us in hysterics :D

i relinquished responsibility for the bus on the way back, and got a ride back to tel aviv from a guy in our unit who's generally rather uncommunicative. we had an interesting talk, got lost in traffic, and eventually i got dropped off near my home. after a quick shower, i took a giant sandwich for a walk to what i understood was a sound exhibition... i made it just in time for the final event of the day, which was essentially a sales pitch for a very impressive sound mixer. if i was interested in making a purchase, i might've hung around for longer than i did.

i've watched some more of the big bang theory, and am definitely getting into bed. stupidly early morning, coming up.