Songs of desperation, I played them for you

Fitness being the key to my life recently, heres plenty of song's that have made it onto my ipod, All are drum and bass, as its great music to run to, not listen to as a normal person sat in a chair and if you don't like pendulum ish music, basically go make a cuppa, stick on the tv and noboff my blog (Loads of other stuff too but popular stuff that everyone's heard anyways, also cancer bats made it onto there too, to keep certain others smileing, i'm not that corrupted)

Friction vs Camo & Krooked - Stand Up ft. Dynamite MC


Tony Anthem, Axl Ender, erb N dub & HD - Move Down (feat. Harry Shotta & Darry Dee)


The Qemists - Hurt Less


DJ Fresh & Sigma - Lassitude

(-A-) Interview 2

I've finally had my interview!
I last updated my progress into the army back in august after taking my barb test, my plans are still relatively the same but i'll explain as i go

basically this interview is for me to discuss different topics with the recruiter to make sure i'm eligible and he then gives his recommendation based on my knowledge, attitude and approach to the army, he wrights up his report and if the MO at the office thinks there is anything else to explore i'll have a third interview with him, to then set a date for ADSC (Army's development and selection centre)

So heres how it went, Dressed up in my shirt, tie and clean as shoes i sat down at 9:30am in the office as i have before, i have a new recruiter called phil who's just about as down to earth as they come as my old recruiter went back to his regiment

He went through personal circumstances, i.e partner, family background, finances etc which was relitivly straight forward, no problems

Then achievements and interest, i.e employment, hobbies and any responsibility's i've had. Again straight forward and no real surprises

After came fitness, which probably took up half of our interview, I had to give details of my current fitness:

• 1.5m time is currently 10:10
• Sit-ups: over 72 (classed in the top 1% who join)
• Press up's: 20-25 (classed as slightly below average)
• Heavies: 11-12 (classed as good)

Then i've kept a diary of everything i do in the gym and run times and he's happy there is a clear progression, then had to say if i take part in any extreme sports, unfortunately i don't yet i intend to do them with the army but got on to talking about cycling to which i'm kicking his ass for time by about 5 mins, he was a tad gutted.

Same topic of fitness but i've been curious to this for a while so brought it up whilst i was there, Protein powders. Many people i see in the gym from the year below use them (and look hench) i've always taken the high road of they can't be good for you there all chemicals and bad for you without question. steak, fish and other such sources of protein are more natural without actually finding out about the powders first. Turns out most of the recruiters use the protein shakes, not often but after a gym session they can help a lot with muscle rebuilding and help to recover from the huge aching feeling your muscles have after going. Also a thing i've been recommended to use is a thing called BCAA (Branched chain amino acids) they help to prevent catabolism (where when your body runs out of fat to burn during cardiovascular training... running and such, it burns muscle instead, not good) so next pay day i'm on the invest into these things to hopefully train to a higher level a little quicker

Anyways, hes happy but wants my run time to come down, so no more running the 1.5, i'm going straight for endurance and the plan is to start at 6 miles straight through to hopefully in the longer run bring down my time

From fitness to Military awareness, things like my general knowledge, what will the training involve, do i understand i'll almost certainly go on deployments? whats my current view of the army through different sources, like tv, newspaper, the general media etc. Now this wasn't to much of a problem but i sliped up on a few key things, like for instance why are we deployed in Afghanistan in the first place? seems so silly but could you tell me honestly why we are there right now? i could remember Iraq, and the invasion there, i don't think anyone hasn't seen a certain youtube clip from around that time caught on a camera phone by a soldier but couldn't think of Afghanistan. i know now as it was explained after but i intend to research it all a bit more later on and update this.

Understanding my terms and conditions came next, things like bullying policy, alcohol and drugs tolerance, but what interested me was the details on the contract you sign, as many of you know your minimum service is 4 years, however the contract you sign is for 12 years. basically at the 4 year mark you can opt to leave, giving a years notice, so if you intended to leave dead on the 4 years, you'd have to tell them a year before. also there is a compulsory 28 day training period and then your given a window in which you can opt to leave the training if the army isnt for you, after this window though there is no going back and you can't buy yourself out of the contract anymore. I can undertand it as the army invests a lot of time in the recruiting process, look at me it's taken months if not well over a year now for me to get to this point, they have payed for my medical information and imagine if you turned around and went for the door and essentially bye mate, wouldn't be good.

Final bit is your job briefs and icebreaker, where you stand up and present each of your jobs including all the details about them from memory, and the icebreaker (you have to stand for 2m and talk about yourself to everyone else on adsc) your going to read when you get to adsc from memory. Now this is where it got a bit complicated for me, My job briefs are Armourer, Para's, and infantry. My reasons for these i'll again post in another one as this is getting a bit of an essay to say the least but it came out that it wasn't clear which one i wanted to go for 100% out of para's and armourer, they where both equal, my recruiters issue is you get marked on motivation towards your jobs at adsc, so i need a clear mind frame not one with doubts, so i've come away for a week, hes holding his report off and given em a few more options to consider as well to go alongside armourer and my reasons for joining there, to go away and research, two of the bigest i'm researching at the moment is military intelligence and ammunition technician (or to you bomb disposal, same job title) so we shall see, i'll post again tomorrow before work hopefully the details on that

so that's that, i'll get back to phil in a week's time to let him know whats going on or if i need a bit longer to think it over, i need to write my icebreaker yet too :/ but yeah finish the interview and then its plain sailing i hope from here on in

xo