Hej Viola !
Jag vill hrmed gratulera dig till en ordinarie plats som flygtekniker !!!
Ring mig snarast, s att vi fr reda ut hur vi ska gra med pappershanteringen.
Med vnlig hlsning
FRSVARSMAKTEN
REKRYTERINGSCENTRUM
Kapten Martin Sachs
Ljtnantsgatan 25
107 85 Stockholm
For those of you who can't read Swedish, it basically boils down to the simple fact that you are looking at a future officer in the Swedish Air Force.
Oh. My. God.
------
[Edit: Eight hours later]
So. I figure this need some deeper explanation, since a rank in the army isn't usually something you win at the lottery.
For the last two years I have had the classical ambition to "do something with my life". This something was in my case a career as an engineer within technical design. The education program is five years long and the only reason I haven't applied yet is because I wanted to finish travelling before I tied myself up for such a long time. I have always been a very impulsive and restless person and committing to something for a year is in my case an impressive display of foresight. During the last two years I have moved no less than twelve times, to ten different addresses in five different cities in three different countries. That says a lot.
It has been fun, no doubt about it. My year in Lund was probably the best of my entire life. I have met so many people, seen so many things, lived through happiness and hardships and grown in a way I never thought I would. And I needed it. Even though I acted like an adult, dressed, walked and talked like an adult, I was lost.
I don't know why it changed, or even when or how it really happened. I just woke up one day, looked around and thought,
"No. I am meant for more than this." And I knew it was true. I had grown a steel back bone over night. Or over time, I wasn't sure. I just suddenly noticed that it was there.
After that the days at the callcenter seemed painfully pointless. Work was a way of passing time, a means of survival, but desperately stagnated.One day in September, in a search for something interesting to pass the slow day, I found an ad from the Minstry of Defence. The Swedish Army was looking for specialist officers. "Do you have what it takes?"
I had been close to doing military service when I was eighteen but had given it up when I had been told by somebody that I had too bad eye sight to be accepted. I had later learned that this wasn't true at all, but by that time several years had passed and I never bothered to apply. The more I read about it, the more fascinated I got. It was six days before last application date, and after having thought about it for a couple of days I sent it off.
Five weeks later I got an email telling me that I had been chosen to come to Stockholm for physical tests and interviews on 20 October. Since the government would pay my trip there and back I thought it a splendid opportunity get a free vacation since I still wasn't sure if I really wanted to join the army.
"What the heck," I thought. "Let's give it a shot. If I don't get in I know what to do anyway."
So I nailed the intelligence test, spoke openly to the psychologist, did my best at the physics tests (which sadly wasn't much, although I at least beat one of the other girls at strength) and spoke plainly to the interviewing officer. (An officer who, by the way, happened to be the same Captain Sachs in the marines who sent me the email today, and probably one of the most attractive men I have ever met. Tall, proud and blue eyes that would pierce you to the chair if they weren't full of that mischievous spark.
I still kick myself every day for not checking if he was married.)
When I went home again, after having had a well needed vacation with friends and family, work seemed even more painful than before. It was all I could do not to fall off my chair of boredom. I started to fully realized how much I missed moving around at work. It also hit me how empty my life was, and this city. I wanted to take dance classes, learn how to play the guitar, paint terrible pictures of dogs and grapes in bowls and get serious with my War on Sugar. Most of the time I stayed home and did cross stitches and stared into the wall. I completely lost motivation. I stopped working out, stopped reading and stopped living altogether.
It was comfy, of course, but hardly constructive.
I didn't want to put too much hope to the application, so as Christmas started to stagger up towards Cork with as much enthusiasm as an unwilling dog I started planning for my life for 2009. I was not staying in Cork, that was for certain. It was a nice city to visit, no doubt, but it was a crappy city to live in. I longed home to a place where there was always hot water, where I didn't need a lighter every time I wanted to use the stove and where the bills were of a kind you actually knew how to pay. I was going to Stockholm i February, I had already made my mind up. I had friends there and I liked the city. I could get a job as a waitress until I started school, and after that I would have my life settled - and it felt good.
Then today I got an e-mail. An earthquake in binary.
I was accepted.
I didn't even know what to think. Was I happy? Was I upset? I didn't know. Everything I had planned had been thrown away. Now things were completely different. I was not going to Stockholm. I was going to Halmstad. I was going to spend the spring running and being yelled at.
"Oh. But.. I... Or... Um... I... Yeah... ", was pretty much how I felt.
My God.
Me - an officer. The thought is almost absurd. Me, the heart-felt liberal who can barely see blood on TV without shuddering and covering my eyes - an officer in an army?
To be honest I barely know why myself. But it is the only thing that has made me sway even the slightest from the plans I have had the last two years - which is as close to an eternity as it gets when it comes to me and"what-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up-questions - and that has to count for something.
The fact that Sweden has not been at war with anyone for over two hundred years helps as well. I am quite certain that in my position as a flight technician the chances of ending up in a combat situation is pretty much equal to null.
I can't help but brag a bit as well. I called up the Captain Sachs after work today to get the paper work settled. He told me how it all went down and we agreed on a plan in case the confirmation letter got lost. When he figured out who I was he smiled and said,
"Oh, but you knew you would get this place from the beginning."
School starts 2 February, which gives me barely two more months in Cork. It feels odd.
Everybody congratulated me at work, hugging me and patting me, although there was hardly any true enthusiasm in their faces. Lasse's usually constant smile was weak and forced and he almost looked angry at me when I gave him the news, even though he had known about it ever since I applied and even offered to give me a reference. Caroline was slightly more cheerful, but dampened, as if her face didn't know whether to look happy or sad.
I guess it should make me feel appreciated in a way. I know they like me a lot, and I believe that if I had stayed they would have liked to put me in more demanding positions.
Now I will be leaving in less than two months, and with me the small air of childish cheerfulness that I try and bring to work.
I will miss them too. Especially Lasse, and Hannah, and even Caroline. Even though she is not even my boss she has treated me with more respect than anyone else, even with things being the way they are at work. I care a lot about them and I will miss them, probably more than I realize now, but in the end it doesn't change anything.
I'm in the army now.
Jag vill hrmed gratulera dig till en ordinarie plats som flygtekniker !!!
Ring mig snarast, s att vi fr reda ut hur vi ska gra med pappershanteringen.
Med vnlig hlsning
FRSVARSMAKTEN
REKRYTERINGSCENTRUM
Kapten Martin Sachs
Ljtnantsgatan 25
107 85 Stockholm
For those of you who can't read Swedish, it basically boils down to the simple fact that you are looking at a future officer in the Swedish Air Force.
Oh. My. God.
------
[Edit: Eight hours later]
So. I figure this need some deeper explanation, since a rank in the army isn't usually something you win at the lottery.
For the last two years I have had the classical ambition to "do something with my life". This something was in my case a career as an engineer within technical design. The education program is five years long and the only reason I haven't applied yet is because I wanted to finish travelling before I tied myself up for such a long time. I have always been a very impulsive and restless person and committing to something for a year is in my case an impressive display of foresight. During the last two years I have moved no less than twelve times, to ten different addresses in five different cities in three different countries. That says a lot.
It has been fun, no doubt about it. My year in Lund was probably the best of my entire life. I have met so many people, seen so many things, lived through happiness and hardships and grown in a way I never thought I would. And I needed it. Even though I acted like an adult, dressed, walked and talked like an adult, I was lost.
I don't know why it changed, or even when or how it really happened. I just woke up one day, looked around and thought,
"No. I am meant for more than this." And I knew it was true. I had grown a steel back bone over night. Or over time, I wasn't sure. I just suddenly noticed that it was there.
After that the days at the callcenter seemed painfully pointless. Work was a way of passing time, a means of survival, but desperately stagnated.One day in September, in a search for something interesting to pass the slow day, I found an ad from the Minstry of Defence. The Swedish Army was looking for specialist officers. "Do you have what it takes?"
I had been close to doing military service when I was eighteen but had given it up when I had been told by somebody that I had too bad eye sight to be accepted. I had later learned that this wasn't true at all, but by that time several years had passed and I never bothered to apply. The more I read about it, the more fascinated I got. It was six days before last application date, and after having thought about it for a couple of days I sent it off.
Five weeks later I got an email telling me that I had been chosen to come to Stockholm for physical tests and interviews on 20 October. Since the government would pay my trip there and back I thought it a splendid opportunity get a free vacation since I still wasn't sure if I really wanted to join the army.
"What the heck," I thought. "Let's give it a shot. If I don't get in I know what to do anyway."
So I nailed the intelligence test, spoke openly to the psychologist, did my best at the physics tests (which sadly wasn't much, although I at least beat one of the other girls at strength) and spoke plainly to the interviewing officer. (An officer who, by the way, happened to be the same Captain Sachs in the marines who sent me the email today, and probably one of the most attractive men I have ever met. Tall, proud and blue eyes that would pierce you to the chair if they weren't full of that mischievous spark.
I still kick myself every day for not checking if he was married.)
When I went home again, after having had a well needed vacation with friends and family, work seemed even more painful than before. It was all I could do not to fall off my chair of boredom. I started to fully realized how much I missed moving around at work. It also hit me how empty my life was, and this city. I wanted to take dance classes, learn how to play the guitar, paint terrible pictures of dogs and grapes in bowls and get serious with my War on Sugar. Most of the time I stayed home and did cross stitches and stared into the wall. I completely lost motivation. I stopped working out, stopped reading and stopped living altogether.
It was comfy, of course, but hardly constructive.
I didn't want to put too much hope to the application, so as Christmas started to stagger up towards Cork with as much enthusiasm as an unwilling dog I started planning for my life for 2009. I was not staying in Cork, that was for certain. It was a nice city to visit, no doubt, but it was a crappy city to live in. I longed home to a place where there was always hot water, where I didn't need a lighter every time I wanted to use the stove and where the bills were of a kind you actually knew how to pay. I was going to Stockholm i February, I had already made my mind up. I had friends there and I liked the city. I could get a job as a waitress until I started school, and after that I would have my life settled - and it felt good.
Then today I got an e-mail. An earthquake in binary.
I was accepted.
I didn't even know what to think. Was I happy? Was I upset? I didn't know. Everything I had planned had been thrown away. Now things were completely different. I was not going to Stockholm. I was going to Halmstad. I was going to spend the spring running and being yelled at.
"Oh. But.. I... Or... Um... I... Yeah... ", was pretty much how I felt.
My God.
Me - an officer. The thought is almost absurd. Me, the heart-felt liberal who can barely see blood on TV without shuddering and covering my eyes - an officer in an army?
To be honest I barely know why myself. But it is the only thing that has made me sway even the slightest from the plans I have had the last two years - which is as close to an eternity as it gets when it comes to me and"what-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up-questions - and that has to count for something.
The fact that Sweden has not been at war with anyone for over two hundred years helps as well. I am quite certain that in my position as a flight technician the chances of ending up in a combat situation is pretty much equal to null.
I can't help but brag a bit as well. I called up the Captain Sachs after work today to get the paper work settled. He told me how it all went down and we agreed on a plan in case the confirmation letter got lost. When he figured out who I was he smiled and said,
"Oh, but you knew you would get this place from the beginning."
School starts 2 February, which gives me barely two more months in Cork. It feels odd.
Everybody congratulated me at work, hugging me and patting me, although there was hardly any true enthusiasm in their faces. Lasse's usually constant smile was weak and forced and he almost looked angry at me when I gave him the news, even though he had known about it ever since I applied and even offered to give me a reference. Caroline was slightly more cheerful, but dampened, as if her face didn't know whether to look happy or sad.
I guess it should make me feel appreciated in a way. I know they like me a lot, and I believe that if I had stayed they would have liked to put me in more demanding positions.
Now I will be leaving in less than two months, and with me the small air of childish cheerfulness that I try and bring to work.
I will miss them too. Especially Lasse, and Hannah, and even Caroline. Even though she is not even my boss she has treated me with more respect than anyone else, even with things being the way they are at work. I care a lot about them and I will miss them, probably more than I realize now, but in the end it doesn't change anything.
I'm in the army now.
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
Speaking of news, sounds like you have some excitement in your future, or rather at least some change to experience. I could use some change in my life right now to act as a catalyst of sorts to spur me on, but the way the economy is over here really tells me I need to stay put and save up somemore so that I can survive moving on.
I hope sitting down with Goblet of Fire and tea was a success for you tonight, I think that might be my favorite of all of the books. It's the "shit just got real" moments within it that make it so. I just got the collector's edition of The Tales of Beedle The Bard off of amazon so I can peruse that in the near future, it has a real interesting packaging strategy. It looks like an oversized leatherbound book then you open it and there is a collection of JK's artwork from the book and then a small book with a skull and other decorations on the cover that comes ina velvet bag. It is really cool in that kitchy sort of way, but for now I have to read another 40 pages of Huck Finn before I can move onto another book, that and I just got a big box of comics today.
I, as well, am glad you posted that original post.