| Sinfest 
---------- Hey all! Sorry it's been so long since my last update--what is that... 6 months ago? Yeah, lol. Anyhow, as most would know, I'm stationed over in Okinawa, Japan as a part of Headquarters Batallion, 3rd Marine Division, I'm now a Lance Corporal (E-3) as of July 1st 2008, and at that magical age of no use: 19 (Although my brother brought up a fun little point in telling me it's the last time you can be called a "teenager"). Of myself, I've been alright. Surviving. Living. You know how it goes. I've been over here since the beginning of August, just before my 1-year anniversary of being in the Corps--nearly 2 months ago. It's a quaint little existence. I wake up at around 4:30am every day, go running or work out, finishing between 6-7 depending on whether we (my unit) went running off base or did combat conditioning, etc., have the rest of the day to myself until I work at 9pm-9am; 12 hours. Rinse and repeat. Nice thing about work, though, is I work for 2 days, then get 2 days off. It's kinda like having a weekend every other 2 days. I wish I could say I've been going out a lot and exploring the place but the nature of how I work and how our time off is managed here interferes with that. Over here if you're an rank E-3 (mine) and below, you can't go off-base alone. You gotta go around with at least one buddy. To regulate that, we sign out in logbooks handled at the entrance to our barracks. Suck eh? But I have been able to go out with the guys I work with pretty regularly. We mainly go out to eat at restaurants around town, although a few of them also go out onto the town, get drunk, and all the craziness that goes with that  Otherwise my life comprises of sleeping, being on the computer, listening to music, and gaming. Pretty horrible huh? I was set to write a whole nother paragraph or two of what else is goin on--changes I'm trying to make, musing from my head, and realizations I'm making, but I find myself unable to write right now. You can probably tell from how boring my other two paragraphs above were written lol. Anyway, just know that ya'll are awesome, I miss ya'll, and I want need to catch up you guys again--hopefully within a year or so. --Out *Edit* So I was able to write something of what I wanted to communicate on here, several hours later. Here it is: So all this time I've thought myself as a solitary person--as in, I don't really need anyone to survive and go on. If there was no one else but me, I'd be perfectly fine.
Lately, it's been hitting me as I waste away out here. No, I guess I'm really not a solitary person. At least, not in sense that I've always thought myself as being solitary. It's more that I have the potential to be solitary in the life I lead, but I still need my connections; friends, family, etc.
Being out here in Okinawa, I thought was going to be great. Bicycling around the island to different monuments, shrines, exploring, snorkeling, going up to mainland Japan to go snowboarding in the winter time, etc. Administrative red tape has stopped most of that, with personal preference and whatnot edging the last of it.
The policy for leaving base out here is for E-3s and below (which includes me), you have to have a buddy to sign out with and then be back at midnight. Now, the midnight thing's totally fine (why would you want to go exploring in the dark when you couldn't really see anything? If you want that effect you can get it before 12am anyway). The whole buddy program thing is what kills me. I guess maybe you could sign out together then go your separate ways, but that'd be trying your luck as it would be a violation of the policy (you have to stick together while you're off base). And if you did so willingly, you'll get punished. So that kills all the exploring and everything I was looking forward to being out here for. On the side, there's the SMP (Single Marine Program) which does regular outtings to go to places and explore local culture and whatnot but my work schedule and my aversion to going out with a big bunch of other people cuts that out.
Anyhow, in light of that, being stuck here on base in the meantime has been helping me develop a sense for what I want out of life and what I want now. And helped me reached conclusions I've been needing to reach. Here are some tentative thoughts:
1) I want companionship. Again, maybe it's my aversion to making new friends or rather, putting my confidence in them and confiding in them, but I miss friends back home in Hawaii.
2) Clichedly, I want to find my soul mate. I know I've found a best friend that I can share the world with and regret being unable to really spend time with him like in our days of old, but now I also want to find that girl that I can do the same with.
a) Of one such case, I found a quote someone said that basically said, "You only love the idea of me; you love *me*, you just love what you envision of me and what I mean to you in your head" and it's probably pretty true here. Over the time I spent talking to her, I probably built up a mental image of her and that's what kept me enthralled, and sometimes still does.
3) I want to know as much as I can of my current work. It's work that I can continue once my years of service in the miltiary are done with salaries that potentially reach up to 6-digits. But if I do follow in this job field, I want to stay as close to Hawaii as I can. Island boi 4 lyf? lol.
4) I need to work on how I am, socially. I'm not the greatest socialist, being more of a reactive talker and listener.
5) I need to have more common sense thinking. I have a weird thought process and don't draw conclusions easily. I'm more booksmart than streetsmart. And to me, that's bad. *tidE* |
