Hell Week

Had a horrible week in camp.

1) Was involved in the camp shifting ceremony parade. So spent much of Monday through Wednesday getting roasted in the sun, rehearsing for the parade on Thursday. Damn tiring, and it doesn't help when the RSM keeps us all standing there when he's messing around with the MC, music and various miscellania.

2) Ran the 3rd Div cross-country race on Tuesday. Not a good race, came in slower than last year I think. Ah well.

3) On Wednesday afternoon, was arrowed, with a couple of others, to perform magic by doing up a notice board by the next morning. Apparently, the enlistees' mess inherited the board from another branch and the boss wanted it done up before the chief of army visit on Thursday. Talk about last minute. In any case, we just printed up some powerpoint slides and decorated the board with nice yellow arrows pointing at our names (the committee). Hope people got the message.

4) Had to do incredible amounts of cleaning during the nights. As we're going to Australia soon, and because the Aussies are extremely anal about bringing in organic material into their country, we have to ensure that all our equipment is mud / dirt / grass-free. Great joy. Especially when my equipment is 5 years old. 5 year old mud stains. Wash, dry, mud-stains still there, repeat.

5) Had guard duty again on Friday! This is like the 3rd consecutive week I've not enjoyed a long weekend thanks to guard duty. Such a pain.

Rant rant rant.

Interestingly, my watch strap broke earlier in the week. It broke in an irrepairable manner too, metal piece breaking off and all. Not that interesting, until a couple of days later, the battery also died as well. I guess that's good... now I non-working watch that I can't wear, rather than a working watch that I can't wear.

One good thing did happen last week though. So after guard duty, I was like totally worn out from the hell week, I stepped into the empty company office, only to be greeted by the soft strains of the second movement from Beethoven's Emperor concerto. There's something quite magical about listening to this kind of music from a slightly staticky radio in a really really quiet office with no one else about. Music as a process down to its bare essentials - silence, music and the listener. The contrast between what I had been doing all week and the sound world that was enveloping me couldn't have been greater.