wnd's weblog

Another rant about my non-military service. Back on the road. It turned out – not that I’m complaining – that our Fridays are a bit short. Our rooms were checked at eight o’clock and we had the first and the last lecture of the day from nine to eleven o’clock. Carter bus and the first normal bus both left quarter past eleven. Carter bus was for those who had to catch up with connections. Thanks to our rather large numbers, not everyone could get on the first two busses. To my big surprise I found myself standing at Lapinjärvi training centre with some ten lucky fellows.

As the others headed to reception to ask about the next bus I headed back to my room. I knew the next bus would leave at 14:35 so I killed time by watching two episodes of Mythbusters. I then checked my gear and started the walk to the bus stop about 2.5 km further North. The bus ended up being ten minutes late. At least I would be getting home. The big adventure would take place on Tuesday as I would need to get back…

Talking of rooms, I moved on Wednesday. On Monday I realised that the people I got so well along with stayed all in the same room. For whatever lucky chance, the fourth one in their room called sick and was dismissed from service for now. This was something that we didn’t know for sure until Tuesday. By Tuesday I had an approval from my roommates-to-be for my plan. On Tuesday night I asked the boys at reception if it was possible to move to another room. At first they doubted, as “all the rooms are full and some people are still sleeping on floor”. When I told them about the empty bed, they checked their papers and realised the guy had already left. They told me if the cleaning staff was ok with my proposal I’d get to move. Not later than at eight o’clock in the morning I had everything cleared out and by half one o’clock I had moved.

Friday. The first week is now dealt with and there are three more to go. Being optimistic that means I have ten nights to go. It’s surprisingly pleasant at Lapinjärvi expecially considering the fact that basically we’re there against our free will. I owe big thanks to the unnamed few who I’ve had the pleasure to spend time with day after day. It would have been much worse without them. In fact, I’m almost getting to like this. This isn’t so bad after all.