My friend I thought the same way a year ago. I was content on party hopping for my needs, but all it takes is that special girl to come along and turn your world upside down. I've been with my girlfriend for a year and a half so far and truth be told I haven't been happier.

I'm just saying you can't factor marriage in until you meet her, right? I'll just go with the flow. Should I get married, I'd like not to have my ideally robust lifestyle shattered too terribly. Odds are plans will have to change, but I'll be hopeful..... Maybe I'll get lucky and find someone in the service..... It could happen.

This post has been edited by Lord Revan: Jul 20 2008, 04:56 AM

I wanted to fall in love and go through a romantic story that tests me and that I grow from. I didn't realize it would suck this much! I've grown up more in the last 6 months then the previous 6 years. It's the most painful experience I have ever gone through in my life. I've been in love before, but not like this.

This is like, well we're not together right now so I'm with other girls sometimes and I like them, too and have fun with them but... without getting to racy, after we're done all I can think about is this girl. It's like my hormones let me ignore her but when they're gone I feel horrible and guilty and we don't actually have a relationship. It's quite difficult.

Anyway, this country is amazing. Buenos Aires is amazing. I'd go into detail but then I'd have nothing to post about later.

Poor Doomed One. I can imagine quite a few denizens of this domain can relate to this your story. I know I can. Love can be massively painful sometimes. I'm going through something right now too that I can only describe as painful, but... well I don't really know. I'm full of confusitrons, the very elementary particles I'm sworn to spread. For some reason they all built a nest in my brain right now. Ah well, I guess it's good to have the kids home for a while...

I wondered why I was feeling less confused of late... go low conncetrations of confusitrons!

In other news, my many attempts at finding a job all came to naught. While this is great in the whole do what I want and sleep as long as I want side of things... it kinda sucks insomuch as I'm totally broke and therefore need money >_<

Dude. I'm there. I dont have a job either, and as of right now, I'm starving and thinking about joining the army for the stability. If the recruiter freind of my friend can follow through, I'll just end up being a three year reservist doing drills for three years at an office type setting. The unit supposedly is non-deployable, and when it's deployed, its to process the people who are going overseas.

..and then you're transfered because they need more people in XYistan.

Well, I'm up late and bored. I'm planning a prank on my roommate. The whole cup-of-water-falls-on-your-head-when-you-open-your-door-routine. It's nothing hostile, just a running joke that keeps us occupied. He sleeps light, so wish me luck.

True. But the alternative is homelessness. Granted my odds of survival are greatly diminished in a combat zone. My death, a necessary end, will come when it comes. Nor shall I live my life in fear of that end, for it is the fear that truly diminishes living.

Sorry mate, I just don't agree. Why on earth should anyone wanna join the army in your country? To deliberately put your life at stake? I can't accept it. AND I have a damn good reason for being very picky about this issue, but I won't discuss that here...



You my friend will get a pm tonight!

My second career choice (the first being air force pilot) was going to be the army. Not recruit, but I would have tried to get a commission. I live better when under some kind of schedule. That's one thing I like about school.

Speaking of which, I'm not going to the public school all of my friends are going to. Instead, I'll be at a christian private school. The Pros over the district high school: smaller student population (everybody knows everybody else), lower probability of people trying to give me drugs, and there's more of a "community" within the campus.

Unlike my friends, I don't have any problem whatsoever with wearing school uniforms (as long as their not too terrible looking). The cons are mostly things that will force me to be a better student (I've got horrible procrastination issues among other things). Well, there is the fact that the district high school had an open campus (if the host of resteraunts around it were any indication).

Behold, I have internet once more! Got a wireless connection thing for my PC, so I can get high-speed internet in back-of-beyond Wyoming. My job keeps me away from the computer most weeks (I'm on a comp-time vacation right now, being paid $14.42 an hour not to work so they don't have to pay me overtime) but I'll see if I can start writing again on weekends. No, Al cannot be silenced for too long...

As for this little vacation of mine, tomorrow I'm going to play some ultimate frisbee here in Lander and then I'm going to hike up into the mountains for a couple days, up into a nice glacial cirque at 10,000 plus feet elevation. Oh yes.

Well as someone that has willingly joined the US Marine Corp, I'll explain.

There are many reasons as to why a person would join a military.

Time honored tradition
Adventure
Chance to prove oneself
To defend their nation

And there are several more, discipline, money for school.. etc etc. The primary job of a countries military is to defend you, cause if they weren't, then you would have to. And lets face it should war come to your homeland anytime soon I don't think most of the non military peoples could fight it.. Or at least very well. Oh then peoples excuses are "well if no one had a military we wouldn't have to worry about war (and such)". That is very correct however it is if anything a forlorn hope. See other people don't agree with the no military principle, and they are not usually nice people and you know what? They tend to use force to get their ways. Now if no one would fight against those people, what would happen? Well simply you would be subjects of a new country against your own will.. Sounds fun.

In fact the only countries I believe that can survive without a military at the moment are Iceland and Costa Rica. Why? Because their independence is protected, firstly by the United States military and secondly NATO.

I'm sorry Minky to me your arguments just don't hold up.. I mean when mean spirited people aren't mean spirited anymore I'll call for the abolition of the military. Until then I believe we should remain vigilant in case of another crop of maniacal dictators.

The only thing that can ever stop humanity from having an internal war is if there is an external threat. Let's face it, we all feel threatened by something: terrorists, bogeyman, other powerful nations, spiders, snakes, bears, etc. Humanity is one species, but we see each other as different in practical and dogmatic ways.

We have choices, we disagree. Each of us has a different place we draw the line. Fighting is just an extension of our ability to compete and our drive to survive and prosper. We used to compete with animals more than anything, now we fight mostly ourselves. When we have something else to compete with, we'll probably fight amongst ourselves a little less, but not all together.

If we were all a hive-mind we wouldn't have to fight each other. We might have to fight something else, but we'd have no reason to disagree with each other. The only place you never have to fight is the afterlife, Minque.

Yeah I agree competition is a part of nature, but its not the only part. Natural Selection only covers one aspect of what is evolution, the other part is assimilation. Some bacteria decided to put away their differences and form the first complex cells, and then some of these cells worked together to fight other multicelled organisms. These organisms formed packs and tribes to fight other packs and tribes, and then they became nations.

It only seems logical to me that if humanity doesn't kill themselves, they'll eventually come together. Maybe if aliens or demons or something attacked and we realized we had something more important to compete with than ourselves...

Yeah sorry, we're talking about the army, right? No me gusta. I prefer to follow the time honored tradition of counter-culture and rebellion; the adventure of standing for a cause that's actually just; proving myself by going through hell for something that's worth a damn and defending my country by increasing the well-being the citizens. Just my 3 cents.

I'll just point out that eternal peace means that every generation has to believe in the same principles that caused the union in the first place. It would take a higher power to override free-thought and disagreement among sentients. Even if all our unique cultures and histories just vanished, we'd still find ways to distinguish ourselves from others.

To truly have complete unity we'd have to transcend what we understand as reality and what it is to be human. Totally disarmament won't accomplish that, there's nothing tangible that can make war end because that's pretty much what life is anyway.

Or we could be open minded...

This whole military dilemma is one that can never be balanced, I don't think.

On the one hand, you have peace loving people. On the other, you have war loving people. In order for both to survive, one has to conform to the other. If the peaceful people hold to their values and so do the warlike people, then unfortunately, the peaceful ones die. So, in order to stay alive, they become warlike as well, or, they all die and leave nothing left on the planet but the war lovers.

I realize that I've become a pessimist, but I really don't care anymore.

I'd say more but there really isn't anything else. Under present day cicrumstances, war is as a part of being human as killing things (animals and plants too) to give us sustinance. If said situation changes then armies will be unecessary and the world will be one big utopia.

Utopias are another endeavor humans have tried but never succeeded in.

I think I wouldn't mind any of my friends joining the army if that particular army wasn't engaged in what NATO once euphemistically labelled "forward defense". If you stayed at home, protecting your country against... well... whatever? - that would be fine. But I'll never understand how it serves the security of your people to fight in Iraq. Sure, you've got your hands on resources that're strategically very important, and that does serve your country, but it has nothing to do with defense, does it?

Me, I'm one of those (naive?) peaceloving people. I'd refuse to kill another even if it meant my death. Why? I couldn't live with myself. That's why I refused to join the army even though service is mandatory here. Joining the army - any army - always means that you can end up in a situation where not only you may be killed but where you have to kill another, and... no. Unacceptable to me.