There’s a couple of things you go out of touch with after long time in army. For quite a couple of times, after staying in camp for more than 10 days, I realise I lost my ability to weave within crowds and I either walk really slowly behind someone trying to SMS while walking or stand still in front of a huge group of people walking towards me because I don’t know how to walk in-between them. It takes a while to get over the trauma and re-learn that ability but just when you start walking on streets normally again you realise you’re booking back into camp again.
Then you lose out over your control of eating – camp food is not exactly that bad but when you leave camp you almost inadvertently find yourself munching on something very frequently. Somehow the fact that you only gain access to food (snacks not included) during the stipulated meal times appears to be quite a deprivation. Of course there’s the mess but paying for things in camp isn’t quite my style.
Worst, you lose touch with intellectual stuff like reading and studying. I’ve been trying to study for my SAT and I’m using the methods I used to study A Levels, making notes, doing practice, reading study guides but somehow I feel restless and the sound of PSP in bunk at night can be quite irritating. For reading, I’m starting to read more slowly than the past and I find myself re-reading the same sentence many times to catch what it means. This is extremely worrying; I really hope it’s just army and not me!
