Rak goes to the military (inactivity for the next 6 months)

So here comes the long overdue bloggy post.

As you guys might know, I had been living in Germany for the past 5 years. That phase ended when my dad passed away near new year's eve and I returned home to Turkey. Me returning home also had some came with the questions of what I wanted to do with my life next, as my time past my graduate degree in Germany had been unfruitful. I decided to stay for a few months while things settled down which also saw a few surprising events happening such as job interviews at some awesome companies in Turkey. However, the condition for those jobs is the completion of the compulsory military service (you can't be legally employed otherwise), which was coincidentally coming due this May.

So I had the choice. I could either stay in Germany and keep trying my luck as a fresh graduate, ignore the military service (and risk getting into legal trouble), possibly get a shitty job as a starter but also risk not being able to travel to Turkey again. Which is too much sacrifice for too little gain.

The other option is "get along with it". Go to the military, suck it up and be done with it. Forfeit the Germany option as I lose my visa and also potentially waste 12 months of my life. However afterwards I'm a free man and I'm free do to as I like. Another concern was losing the "deployment lottery" and ending up in the shitshow that's going in the southeast of the country.

After weighing my options, I chose the second one. Fortunately for me, I ended up in a great location with a potentially interesting duty (logistics) and I'll only serve 6 months because I had higher education.

As much as I'm a bit sad to give up Germany for now (great country to live in, but the job market is ruthless), I also think this is a good opportunity to simply get away for a while and get my mind off things that's been depressing me since the new year's. I know it'll also be tough (they say you need to leave your brain at the door when entering military) but I also think there's some things to be learned there, especially things like managing people and getting along with random people. It's like a huge social experiment.

All of this was also the why I was just "kinda there" over the past few months. This whole issue was like a piece of splinter that was stuck in my brain that irritated me and prevented me from committing to anything.

I'm off to my basic training on Wednesday. I don't plan to take any leaves to finish it as soon as possible, so you might not hear from me again for a long time. 

Thank you all for sticking with me, following my content and I really enjoyed getting to know some of you. This whole Rak's Armory thing is something that brings some color into my life, just like a someone restoring a classic car in htheir garage. Hopefully when I come back, I can keep doing it.

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About Rak

I'm an engineer who likes to write extremely long articles about games that border simulation and mainstream.