“How are you feeling now that you competed your duties?”
“Should be feeling good”
“I would be flying if it were my last duty”
A little talk between a superior of mine and I after my last night duty. Though I don’t really know him well, the previous occasion we had duty together, we talked about life, and past and future of our camp. The past was a little of history lessons, as we recall the people and culture way before I came. The future as we foresee how the people and system were like, and he mentioned I would be missed like a couple of NSFs who served their time well with him.
Frankly, I wasn’t feeling much, yet- there seemed to be a little vacuum, not much excited happiness nor sadness. Perhaps I had been numbed.
I recall vividly the commotion and consequences my “upper study” had after getting into trouble on his last duty. I myself wanted some simple routine stuff, perhaps “slow and steady”, perhaps a “just get over and done with” attitude. No steamboats, no celebrations, no sabotage, just plain routine stuff with a handful of less exciting personnel. At least it ended with a round of applause for me as we fall out.
Now I recall, a year and a half: 18 months with take 6 duties each would sum up over 100 duties. Through the duties I rose through ranks and appointments, from simply carrying out orders to carrying responsibilities.
Imagine 24 hours 100 days, but just take 10 hours, I would be 1000 hours. Actually as the days past, you wouldn’t feel the huge amount of time, but now 1000 hours is not too little either.
In no particular order, during the “spare time”, I..
Slept - Probably huge amount of time
Played games - Chinese chess, Sudoku, Risk, Uno, and other “team games”
Read - Newspapers, Magazines, Browse the Intranet, Novels, Books
Talk - Share some jokes and quizzes, getting to know each other better and stuff
Watch - TV, some CDs and DVDs occasionally
When I started out, I was perhaps more “garang” or ambitious.. did exercise when I had the time, brought a couple of books (esp. non-nonfictional war books).. and did some planning and learning for work related stuff and others.. over time the drive seemed to vanish, and there are certainly things I thought I could have do better - finish a couple of uncompleted books, getting to know others better and sort of stuff, pass down more of my skill and so on…
Anyway that’s for looking back, time pass quickly. I mark the end of my duties, finishing reading the war(ww1) story “Four Weeks in the Trenches”, by Fritz Kreisler (a composer and violinist) and writing this.
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