Counting Down for Service

Musings of a Ph.D. student in Computer Science

Published on January 26, 2007

In November 2006 I informed everyone about my incoming (it's not optional!) military service and said it will start on February 20, 2007. There are only 24 days remained to start. I'm counting down each second to see the end. With current rules end date is supposed to be October 22, 2008 (I must serve for 20 months).

Training can be two or four months but unfortunately I should (95%) pass four months of training. Other bad news is I can't take a good position in army to do anything related to mathematics or computer and they may pass me to police forces to serve as a traffic police or keep me as an officer in camps. Here many guys (with same degree as me) serve in related departments or at least in better places and only pass two months of training but my buddies know about my great chance! Always worst things happen to me! You can cross fingers and change my chance in this short while!!

Anyways, that's it and I must serve in worst time that I've seen in latest 10-12 years. Normally after training I can get back to home and keep some daily routines (such as reading books, blogging and of course, playing Xbox 360!) but it depends on future. I wrote a simple Console Application to count days and it shows that 634 days are remained!

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Console.Title = "Down with Dictator!";
 
    Console.WriteLine("Enter date:");
    DateTime date = DateTime.Parse(Console.ReadLine());
 
    TimeSpan diff = date.Subtract(DateTime.Now);
 
    Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0} days remained ...",
        diff.Days.ToString()));
 
    Console.ReadLine();
}

What I can think about to make this service easier is what I want to do after that! Then after 24 years I'll taste freedom and will escape (hopefully). Although there are different experiences to get during these 20 months (as many friends told me) but I personally think these months have a bad effect on my life forever. After university I could improve my life in these a few months but service will return me to zero point again! In comparison to other guys with same degree who start their services I'm younger (two years average) and this is a good point but I could spend these 20 months in a better way!

Having said all these things, I'm getting ready for service. There won't be much of things to care because I closed everything. Here is my short TO DO list before training:

Working on new parts of my tutorials about WCF for ASP Alliance to finish them in next a few days.
Writing new parts of my articles for Microsoft "The Panel" Program/UniveRSS (you'll read the first part very soon).
Reading and finishing three books.
Creating and deploying a new theme for Nayyeri.NET and Community Server 2007.
Playing and finishing Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon and Far Cry Instincts on Xbox 360.
Answering to tons of unanswered emails in my mailbox (you know it's impossible so I'm joking!).
Writing some blog posts to leave them for publishing when I'm off to training (if I can find some spare time).
Anything that you shouldn't know!

In training they will release us on a regular basis (especially because my training has a conflict with our new year eve and some other holidays) so hopefully I'll have sometime to get back to home and spend it on my interests.

+ I don't want to bother you about personal stuff and just wanted to inform readers and friends about things that are related to my activity on community. I'll write more about service on my army blog.

11 Comments

Fahrenheit Marketing is your resource for Search Engine Optimization in Austin.

Lucky Keyvan
Jan 26, 2007 1:19 PM
#

I just sent an update about my service to my blog. I'll give more details here very soon.

Dave Burke
Jan 26, 2007 1:37 PM
#

So Keyvan, two questions. 1) will you still be able to blog much, do you think? And 2) when will you know what you'll be doing in the service? That's tough to not know. I wasn't too excited about my Army experience, but at least I got to pick what I wanted to do.

haacked@gmail.com (Haacked)
Jan 26, 2007 2:21 PM
#

Good luck man. Be safe. :)

The Wizard
Jan 26, 2007 5:47 PM
#

Let me tell you my friend you are not alone and believe me when I tell you, your luck will change! Keep your head down and do what your told and the time will pass, that's what worked for me. :-) Go with love my brother, you will be in many people thoughts!

Keyvan Nayyeri
Jan 26, 2007 9:16 PM
#

Dave, Thank you. Hopefully I'll be able to blog much (or at least as much as I'm doing) after training because they normally let me to be at home 12-16 hours per day. But you know that nothing is predictable in armies, this is just the normal thing that happens to 90-95% of people. In the last weeks of training they will inform me where will I serve 100% but in order to to get a good position I had to start communicating with different ministries and departments and all of them failed! Phil, Thanks man, I hope I could find a position to draw fractals for them but I couldn't :-D Rick, Thank you so muck my friend. It's a pleasure for me to have great friends like you. "Time will pass", that's absolutely right ;-)

Sassan Yeganegi
Jan 27, 2007 4:33 AM
#

Hello Keyvan, Don't be so sad man, it will be fun and you need it! I really mean it! You need to not write any blog posts for a while and to be another person in a different environment with new peoples. All of us, the computer guys, need this. Take care and don't count days! It will be easier for you. Sassan

Keyvan Nayyeri
Jan 27, 2007 5:25 AM
#

Thanks man :-) Yes, I was thinking about that but you know I got back from four years vacation in university just 7-8 months ago ;-) However, you're right about blogging. After 20 months of continuous blogging I need to rest for a while.

Dave Burke
Jan 27, 2007 8:05 AM
#

This may be an opportunity to do something completely un-Keyvan if you have any say in the matter and don't get what you think you'd like. Looking back on my military experience, in the prime of my life and youth, it might have been good to go into some super-infantry area, or electronics. I don't know. One thing is that your life will be all about your time AFTER the service. This is just a week at camp in the long term. Not to dismiss the value of the next 20 months.... Glad to hear we'll still be in touch!

Keyvan Nayyeri
Jan 27, 2007 9:05 AM
#

Yes, it's better to get rid of computer here ;-) At least later I'll be happy because I haven't done much things for them :-D And yes again, I was awaiting for that "after" for a long time so these 20 months will pass quickly. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences my man ;-)

Araz
Jan 28, 2007 12:56 PM
#

Take it easy... Next year I will go to this kind of service (a bit different). So we are Ham-Dard! It is a bad Dard!

Keyvan Nayyeri
Jan 28, 2007 1:05 PM
#

Araz, It's bad but it will be easier to see you as a great friend there ;-)

Keyvan Nayyeri

Recent Posts

Archive

Counting Down for Service

Leave a Comment