129 + 130

129. What's been particularly annoying to you lately? (06/23/2023)

Recently, my army platoon had to move to Camp Arifjan to prepare to fly back to the United States since we finished our 9 month deployment. Arifjan has no free wifi except in the USO and Starbucks, and all the water is almost boiling hot. Everytime the water touches my hand, it hurts because of how hot it is. I have to let it cool for a while before I wash my face. They might have boiled it beforehand to kill bacteria and viruses or the hot desert sun heated up all the pipes and tanks to make the water hot. I would prefer cold water over almost boiling hot water because I have taken cold showers in the winter before but not hot showers in the summer.

I miss having my own room and privacy. When you are in a barracks with 20 other guys, you keep waking up in the middle of the night or day because everybody is moving their bags and stuff to move out or move in.

I believe that we humans are adaptable but there is an adjusting phase to each change. If I stay in Camp Arifjan long enough, I will get used to all this bullshit. Initially, I might only see the negatives but as time goes on, I might start to appreciate the positives as well.

For example, when I was in Ali Al Salem, I didn't like being in the hot desert, walking 5 minutes to the nearest restroom, sleeping in a room that was cold as a freezer, being away from my friends and family, near zero dating prospect because the male to female ratio is 4 to 1, and the decent DFAC that might give you food poisoning. After being there for a few months, I stopped complaining and kept telling myself, "well, just another day in Ali Al Salem". I lowered my standards for a lot of things. I also saw a lot of positives, the gym was empty at night which meant I could do multiple workouts in succession, I did a lot of relaxing night walks, and I played a lot of video games with my coworkers to pass the time.

As entitled as we humans are, we are all adaptable to changes in our living circumstances. It will take weeks or months to adapt, but we will adjust eventually.

130. How many keys do you've on your keychain right now? (06/23/2023)

As of right now, none. When I used to have a singular key for my dorm, I kept it in my wallet. I removed keychains or keyrings to avoid damaging my wallet. However, back in the States, I used to have a total of 3 keys in my keyring. My family's house used to have 2 doors on front and back. They all had the same locks but the front wooden door had an extra lock on top for extra defense so I had three keys. I can understand where my family is coming from. We came from Nepal and Hong Kong where crime isn't that frequent. In Nepal, you have strong communities and neighborhoods where almost everyone knows each other so crime is rare. In Hong Kong, there are people walking everywhere regardless of whether it is 3 am or 1 pm. There is also high securiy with cameras and large police presence. In the US, there is both a lack of strong community and lack of strong security. I have only met one of my neighbors so far and Los Angeles is a very big place so its hard for the police to cover every area. The worst part is that almost anybody can buy a gun. We always hear news about a robbery, car chase, or a mass shooting so we have to be extra careful with security. As much as I don't like mass shootings, I am put in a situation where I have to buy a gun myself for protection. I can run away or try defend myself if the other person has a knife but if they have a gun, I am fucked without one.

Back to my 3 keys. Originally, they were all bronze colored because that was the default key color. I kept having to put in and take out my keys only to put the same one back in by accident because they all look similar. My first idea was to mark them with a black sharpie to distinguish them. Initially they worked but as time went on, the sharpie wore off on my finger through frequent use. Then I went to the key machine which made key copies with different color designs. One of my keys was light green with colorful dots, the second one was metallic dark green, and the third one was default bronze. After getting those keys, I never put a key in the wrong keyhole at my house.

I used to have different keychains attached to my keys like a white polar bear keychain or a panda keychain that I bought in ocean park in Hong Kong. Some of them broke and some I had to give away. So I just have my three colorful keys and the keyring that holds them together. That's it.