Adham 2.0?

Will, not quite yet!

A little less than four months in Egypt now. The rate of new stuff happening to me is slowing down or is it that I'm just getting used to all of it. The rush of getting into something new is fading away yet I'm on the door of what could be the experience of my life time. The Army.

Have I changed during this short period? Certainly. Am I satisfied with the results? Well, thats a much harder question to answer now. I don't even think that the question is a valid one. I certainly weigh less, laugh less than I used to, I take more care of what I say and do, much more care, than what I used to. I'm still in this weird spot where I'm still trying everything and decide which is better. I'm accumulating as much experience as possible dealing with people. I used every type of public transport in Egypt except the "tok tok"! I feel changed, but its a hard thing trying to keep the things I liked the most about me, or at least getting them under control, and at the same time not be like everybody else or what everybody else thinks is the "normal"

I say English words when I speak way more than what I'm supposed to. I use the "comma" sign when I speak way too much. The kind of humor I'm used to is too different than what they have here. I still feel that I have this little kid inside that just wants to break loose and play and get away with everything but the reality is more difficult than this. I'm still deciding on how am I supposed to deal with people, family, friends, girls. I'm still trying to figure out what kind of persona I want to reflect to people, what kinds of limits do I need to set for people. I'm still learning how to not to treat everybody equally good -or bad-. I'm still trying to figure out where my life is heading right now but at least I know how I'm going to spend the next year. 10 months to be exact.

After 4-5 visits to the army recruitment camps my fate in the army has finally been determined. I'm going to go in for the compulsory 9 months plus an extra month for being late on my original recruitment date. I'm starting next week, on the 14th of April, my 45 days in the "training camp" which is supposedly the toughest period in the army and after that I still don't know whats exactly going to happen. I could be sent to any where in Egypt, but of course I'm hoping on Alex where at least I'm going to spend the nights sleeping in my own bed.

I'm taking the army thing with the most positive attitude I could summon. Most people around me are amazed on how cool am I with this army thing. My only second option is to blame the whole thing on my Dad who was responsible for making me miss my original recruitment date and the only chance I had to be exempted from the service -which I now know that I would've surely gotten for at least three different reasons-. The only thing I'm happy for now is that I'm only going to spend 10 months there instead of a nasty 27 months period which was a real possibility till a couple of weeks earlier.

I stopped my diet a month ago and have been keeping my weight at around 90 Kgs, and if you're saying thats still to much then you should know that when I first came here I weighed around 120, so thats a very good achievement for me. Plus, according to everybody here, I'm going to lose around 50% of my mass during the first 45 days period. The only thing I'm worried about in the army is bathrooms. You could do anything to me but when it comes to bodily functions thats a major do-not-miss-with part of my life. I'm also going to be able to run 15 kilos straight which has been a dream of mine for a very long time now.

This is probably my last post before going in. So, to answer the question I started with, am I "Adham 2.0" yet? Will, No. "Adham 1.6" maybe. But I'm guessing "Adham 2.0" is coming in two months with the latest version "Adham 3.0" coming early next year.