Leaving on Monday
Will be gone from 24 May to 15 June.

My birthday will be in Taiwan. My 21st Birthday. I checked up the training schedule. 2 June would be the third day of Exercise Red Beret, the three day uncontrolled navigation exercise. I'd have endured two days of bashing through dense forests, climbing 800 foot mountains, eating cold combat rations, sleeping in the cold, carrying 30kg of load, walking in the rain, covering distances of around 25km, looking for checkpoints with five other cadets and getting help from noone but from my map, compass and the stars. It'd then be my twenty first birthday. Happy Birthday me!

Haha, i was quite upset about it actually, but now i think it's quite special. It's not gonna happen often to anyone, to have a 21st birthday like this. I'm not elated about this or anything, but it's special i guess. It sucks, but it's special.

Went swimming today, did actual proper swimming in laps for the first time in like.... 2 years? Did 21 laps.... Here's a keen point of observation: Did you know that absolutely no chicks of any eye-pleasing degree frequent public swimming pools on Saturday afternoons? Absolutely none? No wonder i did 21 laps with no mishap. The hot chicks must be at the beach or splashing about in condominium pools... or out with ugly guys as it always seems to be the case.... or studying in Sydney far across the sea...

Lies!

Watched Troy yesterday. Not bad, but draggy at times. The zooms were weird. You'd expect all the grand cinematic tracking/craning/crabbing camera movement, and indeed Troy has that, but the sudden insertion of a zoom in... very not good. Feels like a cheap video effect, it undermines the grandeur of the film. It's reminiscent of seventies TV shows too, and film technique that's noticed is a display of the lack of sublety. Distracting from the story. Quentin Tarantino did it alot in Kill Bill, but we know where he's coming from, thus it adds lots of flavour. But in Troy? the director must be nuts.

Don't piss Achilles off. He'll cut you up. He looks like a small child though when he gets 'emo'. little funny. Eric Bana's improved on his temperament in this movie. He should've let go when the greeks came though, the Hulk would've wiped them out. Orlando/Paris/Legolas looks like he'll be shooting the bow in a few more movies to come.