My song
Last night I found my song. It was pretty obvious. Couldn't have been anything but "Self esteem" by The Offspring...
I should've stayed at army base. The week since Wednesday evening has been totally fucked up...

You would have thought I'd learnt it...
Women. You would've thought I'd learnt that women in a relationship are just not it. Well, of course I didn't learn anything from past experiences.
Yet again I chose to be attracted to a women who's already "claimed" by some other guy. And yet again, said woman is nevertheless also attracted to me in a way that allows being close in a comforting sort of way ... but not the whole thing.
I read an advice of a very good friend of mine, and she wrote (paraphrased): "As every 'lover' will tell you: don't try someone who's claimed already by another women. 'Will you leave her for me?' is bound to get a negative answer."
This is fully adaptable to a claimed woman. Unfortunately...

Things you need to know...
...when you're having army swimming training:

- don't have a large breakfast, it doesn't do the nicest things to your stomach later
- if you had a large breakfast, don't attempt to do a flip from the jumping tower after you emptied your stomach
- make sure you're trying to stay under water for more than a minute; it cures the urge to empty your stomach again

Apart from that little lapse, my day has been fun so far.
Tomorrow, I'll leave for Mannheim and visit an old friend of mine, plus I'll have a long weekend!
The next two weeks will be completely out in the fields: 90k ammo for G36 and 5t handgrenades. This is destined to be fun!!

Social interaction/compatibility of me and women
OR: Hello Mr Murphy!
The short way to say it: I'm not compatible. Or, depending on the point of view, they are not compatible.
This does not, of course, keep me (or them) away. It does mean, though, that whenever something only does as much as hints a possibility, there definately is a catch; examples would be: boyfriends, prejudice*, best friends, prejudice**, etc.

Neutral observers claim I'd always "be choosing" those chances with maximum chaos-to-be, those that are most likely to be the most complex constellation there can be. "I'm a hazard to myself" - wasn't that how the song went?
Maybe I should get comfortable with the idea of staying single for yet some years. Not that I'd have a chance anyways...

* due to what is usually referred to as "my history with women"
** due to how I used to be some time in the past

Things you need to know...
...about cross-country running:

- at least 2/3 of the distance to run will be up-hill
- being fit doesn't help if the temperature is around 30°C (~115°F) and the climate can only be described as "humiliatingly humid"
- your muscles won't be sore that night already; they'll wait until you're home and wanna go out to the next dance club/pub (option: until you have to climb stairs repeatedly)
- just when your muscles are close to being in a state of "alright" again, you'll have to do another cross-country run; this time, however, the distance to run is twice as long (you don't have to do it within a certain time-frame though, as a "compensation")
- on the second run, you'll get lost

This has been tested. Very much to my disliking. It was fun nevertheless...

My-oh-my...
What a week. I slept a total of about 5 hours since Tuesday, spent about 36 hours training woodland fighting and how to perform a proper drop from a helicopter, won some beer with eating a whole, large piece of garlic, was publicly honored for my attitude (in front of the entire group!), ran 8km in just below 30 minutes - cross-country, that is! - and I'm still awake.
Phew.

Woodland fighting was fun, even though it took place after a night with only about 90 minutes of sleep ("a few" fence control walks - "a few" being 14 in 24 hours, plus a total of 6 hours guarding the main gate at the base); but the heli drop was just it!! I've never done anything as exciting, and I've done a lot of crazy shit already!!
It was just like in the movies: heli drops, everyone enters within about 10-20 seconds, heli takes off again, flies to the drop zone, barely touches the ground, everyone jumps off while it's still half-way in the air and then it's all about swarming about and finding a spot to cover the next group that is landing approximately 5 minutes later; all that while somewhere in the background you hear machinegun-fire and some (faked) grenade and artillery booms. Wargames at their best...
After all the time out in the woods, they even transported us back to base with the helis, which rocked. Was rather cool because we didn't have to do the 15km hike, too. ; p

All in all, I can only say I'm glad I decided to join the paratroopers and I'm proud to have achieved all this so far. It just feels good to be out there there getting pretty tough training that just plainly rocks and is exactly what I expected from my army time.

So much to that, more to come, but it'll take time.

The Matrix has you
This is pure class. There's a follow-up (check the entry on Friday, June 06, 2003 on the same site) which is great too.

Sweat, anyone?
God dammit! 30 degree Celsius at 1030 is just too hot. I need to acclimatize, seriously. I feel as if I was somewhere in the rain forest. Sweat's running even if you don't move!
At least I found a nice internet-cafe here in Lebach, so I'll be able to get on every now and then during the week.
Hope you're all doing fine, I sure am and the weekend's gonna be fine too: meeting an old friend of mine whom I've not seen in months, and Monday will be off-duty-day too, thanks to everyone involved in that holiday...