Time Traveling

I’ve always been fascinated with the notion of traveling back in time. Maybe it looks really cool to go back into time just like Michael J Fox in the Back to the Future series. You can even make yourself rich and powerful.

After watching Proposal Daisakusen, I changed my thoughts about traveling back in time.

If you had only one chance to travel back in time for a short period, what would you have done?

I believe most people would go back in time to alter something that they regretted not doing or had done.

Maybe…for someone that is special to the heart.

My Military experience.

An Australian friend asked me on my opinions on military training. Is it good or bad?

After my 5 years experience working in a conscript army, mixing with full time soldiers and enlisted conscripts, I would have to say it is subjective. It will be a good experience if you accepted the training positively and terrible experience if you think you are being forced into it.

Thinking back, I would say I took away with me positive skills which do help me later in life. I had the opportunity to go through the rigorous officer training; I had to manage the conscript platoon that was assigned to me and also spent time with reservists whom are professionals on their daily lives.

The following are what I feel I benefit from the whole experience:

1.Leadership training – There are many aspects to leadership to discuss on. I personally like the facet which I picked up through observation – the ability to convince others to follow in times of uncertainty. I have no control over the war, I cannot decide who will die, and I do not know what will happen, so how do you convince them to follow you?

2.Working in teams – We do not choose who we like to work with and we get punished as a group. This helps develop basic social skills and ability to work in teams. We are forced to think as a team and choose courses of action that will benefit the group rather than individual.

3.Self discipline – Doing laundry, personal hygiene, fitness and all the little chores that mommy used to do for you. There’s also the aspect of time management involved.

4.Working with different people – It’s an opportunity to realize there are many kinds of people out there. They have their problems, cultures and perspectives. On a personal level, I get to see the ugly side of people and learnt what not to do from a social point of view.

5.Fitness – I had never been fitter when I was in the army.

6.Appreciation – Appreciation for the little things I took for granted in life. Spending time crawling through mud and staying up late nights out in the mosquito infested forests – I learned to make better use of my free time with loved ones.

7.Teaching – I had never been good at public speaking but I had to teach troops lessons. Most of my audiences were older than me which make things even more difficult. However, I picked up from the senior specialists on how to give engaging lectures and conduct myself professionally.

8.Listening – I had to look after the welfare of my troops and hold personal meeting to listen to their concerns and problems. The first thing is to learn to build rapport – or the sessions will be over in 5 minutes; they will not tell you anything personal of they are not comfortable with you.

9.Earning respect – I still remember when I first stepped into my first assigned battalion; my troops saw me but never saluted. My platoon sergeant punished them for that. My platoon sergeant himself also never saluted me. Then I start to understand that true respect has to be earned. I had to walk my talk and join them in their training and prove to them that I’m capable for my officer role. Took me almost a month to get salutes that come naturally. Well, the easier way was buy salutes through punishment.

10.Integrity – On a personal level I believe integrity is - Doing what is right and question what is wrong. Never lie during war.

Did I enjoy myself in army? I find it stressful during my recruit and cadet days when you are trained by people who are sadists but I also learned a lot from experienced soldiers. For the time I spent in the army, I feel the benefits I had gotten are worth it.

And I thought this would only happen on TV

I think there’s a lot to learn from the following true story that I will be narrating. Sometimes, people are unpredictable; emotions make people commit serious mistakes. Let’s call the two key characters Rubbish and Vixen.

I moved into the house with Rubbish at the same time, it was not hard to notice that he seems to be visiting Vixen very often. I reside in a place shared by 9 people. I would often chat with vixen because she brings up interesting topics about the business situations back in her home country. She's a spoilt rich kid. She did mention to me once that Rubbish was kind of pestering her most of the time and getting ‘touchy’ and I gave her my 5 cents worth on how to tackle such issues.

Rubbish had a girlfriend back home and she will be coming to live with him in 3 months.

Somehow me and Rubbish drifted apart, he seems to have resentment against me but I was not too bothered. I did not find comfort adjusting to his somewhat selfish personality.

When I came back from my 1 week US trip, I did notice Rubbish and Vixen acting like couples. I queries if they were together and vixen got denied and got angry.

Then one day at 5 in the morning, I went out to get a glass of water, I heard Rubbish talking in the bathroom. Curious I stood and spied. Then I heard Vixen’s replying him. Feeling somewhat disgusted at the lies and activities, I slammed my door to let them know someone was awake and forced them to hide in the toilet. Heh.

Vixen also has a boyfriend back home. He loves her alot and sends her money to help her when she used up her dad's remittence.

So anyway I didn’t care until recently, I found my housemates gathering to discuss on the day Rubbish moved out. Rubbish had moved out to rent his own place to live with incoming girlfriend. One housemate was pissed because he still came back late night to pretend to pack up his stuff and hogged the phone for 2 hour to chat Vixen. Rubbish’s girlfriend was already here and sleeping at home.

So I finally got the whole picture:

1) Rubbish hated me because I was closer to Vixen in the beginning. I’m flattered to be seen as a threat.
2) Rubbish saw all the male housemates as a threat.
3) Rubbish cried once when Vixen went out to have meals with another housemate rather than him. I know- that’s so gay.
4) All of Rubbish’s ex-girlfriends were stolen from other guys. Probably that explains his mentality of “There’s no girls I cannot own.”
5) Rubbish tactic was to be highly persistent.
6) Vixen accepted him because he treats her well and does everything for her, e.g. cook for her, get glasses of water for her, carry her bag for her etc. Rubbish degraded himself as her bitch.
7) Rubbish’s girlfriend is older than him and has no university education; she borrowed money to fly to him. I think she plans to get married to him.
8) Rubbish’s girlfriend has no friends, he hold a tight rein on her and does not allow her to be with other guys.
9) Rubbish had been caught cheating once. (Oh yes)
10) Vixen confuses me, she keeps telling us how uncomfortable she is as Rubbish pesters her, despite all our advice, she end up getting involved with Rubbish.

Rubbish says that he does not want to give up on Vixen because he cannot stand his ‘woman’ to be with another man.

So anyway, Rubbish got caught by his ‘stupid’ girlfriend. He should have known better to judge women by intelligence, I reckon women have higher emotional awareness and she probably felt something was wrong when he started to chase Vixen and changed his daily habits or calling her. He got busted because he did not delete the photos taken on the ‘last few days’ where he went out with Vixen to have romantic dinner and ice skating shit. He should have been preparing for his girlfriend’s arrival.

Ethically, this should never have happened.

From a logical point of view, he already have the highest ROI in this investment and yet because of lame reasons refuses to let go. It was a matter of time and we laughed out asses off when he got busted on the 2nd night of his girlfriend’s arrival. I bet she searched his stuff when he was at out place calling Vixen.

The girlfriend actually forgave him. I think he’s probably all that she has and it will be devastating to fly back with nothing. She gave up her life to come to him and also in debt.

We got news that he will still try to keep this awful relationship going even though his girlfriend is locking him down. Vixen seems undisturbed but when asked if she would still carry on, she seems hesitant.

Seriously, what is wrong with these people?

It’s selfishness at its best.