OMG, Army! xD

Sorry for not updating for this long, but I haven't had much to say. ^^;

Well, starting Monday, April 19th, I have been officially shipped to basic training. And I'm having one hell of a time. ^^

We get quite a lot of free time (not quite enough for me to draw a lot or read too much, but still quite a bit), to be honest, and time moves more rapidly than I thought. Even the irregular sleep hours aren't that bad. Sleep is gooooood. xD

There are really only two things that are majorly annoying. The first thing is that most everything is timed, and the second... well, I'll get to that in a bit.

So what do we do? Most of this week had hours spent on introductions to various members of the staff. We get to do a bit of running occasionally (only that I don't really have to, as I'm mildly asthmatic, and running drains my air supply like dog-knows-what - so I have a medical clearance not to do any running - I still run occasionally anyway, but It's good to know I have the clearance. Could come in handy. ^^). Other parts of our time are spent on studying - safety precautions regarding some of the more dangerous things we carry around, all sorts of moral values which soldiers should be having, and of course, how to do various things with our equipment. ^_^;

Which brings me to the second-most - or perhaps the most - annoying thing about the army. One has to lug around a weapon - the basic-most weapon of a soldier in the Israeli Army, which every soldier much know how to use. Which is currently the M16 rifle.

Yes, The Stel with a Rifle. Who woulda thought? I normally dislike rifles quite a bit, and the M16 (M16-A1 to be specific) is no exception. This particular piece of metal is a medium-large weapon which weighs about 3 Kilograms and is rather annoying if you ask me. It's not as much as the weight as the length and mass of the thing, and the fact that holding it correctly rather hurts. And we haven't even gotten to the actual firing yet.

At this point, I'd officially like to point out that If the inventor of the M-16, One Eugene Stoner (I wonder if the name reflects the individual?), Has not been dead for quite a while by now, I would have killed him myself. *clawslashsnarlbitehiss*

With the exception of walking around with a 3 kg attachment to my physique (Right now, the rifle is at the base - we've turned it in before we were sent back home for the weekend, as we haven't fired it yet. Thank dog. The last thing that I would have wanted is to have lugged around that extra weight - even for the short while before I could get home), everything's going fine. But still... Nothing quite like being at home.

The base I'm in is rather good, too. It's rather new, for one, and its location - rather close to the sea - provides rather nice weather at this time of year - the sun is shining quite a bit, but it's not always too hot - especially since there is some REALLY nice wind going on there. Nights are rather coldish, but coldish is good. ^_^;

Plus, there's a LOT of open sky, and it's quite beautiful. The sky, that is. Especially at sunsets, and the occasional sunrise (when we do get to see them, and sometimes we do). The sunsets there are nothing short of amazing. The sun is like huge and orange/red, and the sky goes all gold, and the clouds are bluish-purple...

The kind of sunset you can only see from somewhere that is close to the sea.

So, anyway. Through the course of this basic training (which would last, apparantly, a month, and would end either in May 16th, or May 13th). I'm home on this weekend (April 23-24th), and next one (April 30th-May 1st), but not in the one after (May 9th-10th) - which is the one saturday we have to stay at the base (well, all rookies here have at least one of those. ^^;) After that, I'm not sure. I'll probably be home at the saturday after (May 16-17th) - but I don'

And after that, again, who knows? ^^;

Whew. Long entry.

I need to draw something. ^_^; Anything. I haven't drawn in so looooooong... X_X