At the Monday run today I hooked up with the "10 km in 60 minutes" group, as usual. It was lead by Cpt. B. As usual he had his backpack on and as we were heading out to the forest and the running paths he came up beside me.
"How come you're running in the 60 group?"
He sounded so surprised that I just looked at him and stuttered something about not having run 10 km (a Swedish "mile") more than once and didn't know what tempo that was so I just thought I'd start out light. He nodded seriously - he never does anything not serious - and continued to say that , of course, that made sense.
"But next time try and add some weight, or just skip up to one of the other groups, say the 55 group."
Cpt. B is Second Head of Department and an odd fellow. I have never seen him smile. Ever. And he does have humor. It is just that it is so subtle that barely anyone notices. I have only started to do so. We got a more apparent example of this last Friday at the "Platoon hour" (whatever that's called in English). This conversation took place without so much as a twitch in his mouth.
"Does anybody know where Cpt. W has been this week?"
Somebody answered moose hunting.
"That is correct. And does anybody know how many moose Cpt W has shot this week?"
Somebody else guessed, none.
"That is correct. Thus, when Cpt. W gets back here next week, naturally I want twenty-six questions about how the moose hunt went. Is that understood?"
Come to think of it he reminds me a bit about Tuvok in Star Trek Voyager.
Yes, I am a geek. Not a trekkie. Just a geek.
Almost as rare as his jokes are his compliments, and thus I was deeply flattered, almost touched, about his comment today at the run. I have never been one of the athletic people, and when I arrived here my officers thought I ought to go home again. Being here today, hearing from my officer - who very well knows I didn't pass my last beep test - that he is genuinely surprised to see me in the 60 group warms my soul.
I'll be damned. I don't suck anymore.
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I started thinking about what your old teacher said about reading the same text twice, and on a literal sense of the question, of course you can, I have read the same book two or three times and probably will a few more in my life, but on the sense of the question itself I say no. I say that because I am never quite the same person when I read a book over as I was when I did the last time. I have learned more, experienced more, felt more, and hopefully done more in the time that has existed between readings, so I wouldn't be reading the same text in the sense that the book might be the same but the reader is not so the whole experience of it has changed so then you are taking more from it or just different aspects of it that you didn't the first time. If different parts are "speaking" to you then you aren't reading the same text twice.
Just what my mind decided to cobble together, but the question itself made me miss english classes as a whole. Thanks for kicking my brain into gear this morning though, that's always nice.