I Got Into The Military; General Update

Journal eugene ts wong's Journal: I Got Into The Military; General Update 14

Journal by eugene ts wong on Thursday December 14, 2006 @03:59PM

I thought that I'd give you an update into my life, since I achieved a significant milestone, and since many of you invested much into my life.

***I Got Into The Military***
***General Events Up Till Now***
***Learning French***
***Girls [or lack thereof]!***
***Good Bye***

***I Got Into The Military***

I went into a job interview today with the Canadian Forces, on Dec. 13, Wednesday, in downtown Vancouver. It was an interesting interview, because they drastically shortened the interview process for reserve applicants. In fact, they skipped all the typical job interview questions, and just asked about 3 questions on a check list, about commitments. There were other forms to be filled in, and they needed to follow up on things, but that's it.

I'm proud to say that I'll get the job, as long as I can pass a security check. I'll be a supply technician for the BC Regiment. I'm really excited about this, because the people seem great, the work seems meaningful, I can still find regular work, and the location is next to a SkyTrain station.

On the way home, yesterday, I had a sense of pride and a feeling that everything was going to be alright. I'm not entirely sure that I've had that feeling before. I was smiling for quite a large amount of time, as well. The weather was clear, cool, and sunny: just the way that I like it.

If I ever get my head blown off doing some kind of car bomb inspection, then you can mumble under your breath, "Well, at least somebody is getting his come-upins.". ;^)

I intend to supplement this income with another job teaching ESL, running my own business, or doing some other kind of government work.

Speaking of ESL, I got my ESL teaching certification, so I intend to travel 1 day, and hope to do some Christian ministry as well.

***General Events Up Till Now***

Okay, let's see if I can give you an update starting around 2006.

In Jan. 2006, and maybe a bit of 2005, I started going out to downtown Vancouver to see if I would have been able to start up a local Texas Holdem poker tournament, since poker was getting pretty popular around here. The short story is that I stood on the sidewalk to gauge interest and to promote the idea. It seemed that there was a significant amount of interest, and I even went around to businesses, asking for sponsorship prizes. I even managed to get 1 or 2 prizes. I wanted to get the sponsorship so that there would be prizes, but no gambling. Unfortunately, it never worked out.

All throughout Jan. & Feb. my dad and brother were pestering me to get ESL certification and teach overseas, based on the idea that I taught ESL successfully as a volunteer. I finally gave in and went in in March. There were 5 days in class, and a specialization. The specialization is rated at about 60 hours of private work. I managed to get a second free specialization for doing volunteer work for them.

So, while I was doing the specialization, I explored downtown Vancouver, 1 day. Too much time on my hands, eh? :^) I saw a banner advertising the hiring campaign for the Canadian military. On a gut instinct, I decided to check it out. I think that deep down inside, I've still been hurting for not making it into the navy. To be honest, I am quite jealous of those who did. It turns out that the way of doing things with the BC Regiment is more in keeping with my life than the navy. With the navy, you disappear for long amounts of time. With the BC Regiment, you are only working part time. So, I explained my situation to them, and why I never made it into the navy, but it didn't even phase them. They handed me a application form. Well, I read up whatever I could about these guys, and even attended 1 of their open house recruiting seminars. I was pretty impressed. It looked very exciting and down to earth. So, I bit the bullet and handed in the application.

Since I was going to have to wait for them to process the application, I decided to sign up for some temp work, doing manual labour on a construction site, doing warehousing, and whatever. Well, eventually I got stuck with MAKAM Construction. They asked me to work for them, and I told them that I was intending to join the military, and couldn't work for them. They eventually asked again, and I explained again, and they politely insisted, so I said, "As long as you don't mind me working for only 1 month, then okay.". Since the military was slow in getting back to me, and since I had to get forms filled in again, I ended up working for them for about 3 months on payroll, but over 4 months in total. During that time, I was supposed to finish my ESL certification correspondance work, but I was too tired. In fact, I stopped going to church as well, because I was so tired from the week and just fed up with liberal Crhistianity and lukewarm Christianity.

At around mid-August, they began swearing a lot at me, while micromanaging, which made it all the more painful. It was interesting because I was busy working 1 day, and then they found me, and accused me of slacking off when nobody was looking. It seems that they were looking for me, and I was walking a different route, and we passed each other. Somehow, the time passed really quickly, and it looked like I hardly did any work at all. So, I can understand their perspective. It just blew me away that they would shout at me for playing games, hiding, and not taking a lunch break. That was pretty much the last straw, so I told them that I wanted to quit a month later [2 weeks notice plus 2 weeks vacation].

Fortunately, I managed to stay around long enough for dental insurance, and now I can get that cavity taken cared of.

Another good reason to quit was because I was able to start attending to the homework.

I've started going back to church. This has been quite an experience. I have been going to a couple of Reformed churches. I'm surprised at how they don't decorate their churches for Christmas. That just changed my opinion on a lot things that pertain to influence. I came to the conclusion that sometimes people are just too paranoid, and they want the easy way out by banning things altogether, when God never meant it that way. He sure didn't have a problem with decorating the tabernacle in the Old Testament. So, instead of working with reality, we'd rather ban it all. Then there's the other extreme, where everything goes. It's like we refuse to think and come to a detailed set of rules that allow us to have the most for the least.

So, I finally got my certication at the end of Oct. 2006. Since that time, I've been shopping around for new stuff, and planning board gaming events. Have you read The Tipping Point? I've been trying to push board gaming over a tipping point, so that there would be a huge increase in popularity. I've been checking out various transit friendly venues, and just getting a feel for planning events.

***Learning French***

Also, I bought a French-only dictionary. I spent much time reading through the pronunciations, and examples of word usage. I also went out to the Wednesday night meetings at the Alliance Français, where people sit and chat for a while in French. I've also been reading the New Testament in French too. It's very interesting in that the French language reminds me of King James English.

I've met some nice girls there, but I haven't the foggiest idea on how to ask them out in French. I also can't carry a big conversation in French, so I don't know what possibilities exist there.

***Girls [or lack thereof]!***

Nothing happening here.

In the latter parts of 2005, I hung out with a woman my age, and we practised speaking French. Somehow, I think that we both got turned off each other around February, despite how we had almost everything in common. I guess that I don't like people like me. ;^P

Sometime around Christmas, I met this warm and friendly girl from my brother's church. She invited me out to her Christmas party. We also went to see "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe". I can't remember what the movie what the movie was about, because I didn't get a chance to watch, due to "distractions", but we were at the movie. *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink* Eh, just kidding. I watched the movie. *sigh* ;^p Seriously, we did watch the movie. It was interesting. She seemed to enjoy chatting about it afterwards. Unfortunately, when I turned to see her facial expression during the movie, she seemed so bored.

On an unrelated note, I played Mr. Beaver in our high school play, in grade 11.

That's it! I have to start finding more places to find girls.

***Good Bye***

I wish you all the best in this merry Christmas season...except for you, you and you...and well, you. ;^p I harbour no ill feelings [*cough* visibly *cough*] against anybody [well, actually...]. ;^P Seriously, folks, take care, merry Christmas, happy holidays.

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