Busto: Anticipation

WHAT a great way to celebrate Women’s Month with Kathryn Bigelow making de history at the Oscar’s when she won the Best Director award, becoming the first woman to hold such a distinction; and the Indian Parliament was set to vote a landmark bill reserving one-third of its seats for women.

I celebrated mine, however, as I found my way back to the service's school and started the in-processing for students of the advance career course. It has been over ten years since I last went to the service school for my basic career course. Now, I am back to pursue my advance career course which is a mandatory requirement to have myself promoted to the next rank.

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I had my share of apprehensions when I entered the school hall to start processing for the course' requirements -- ID picture taking, filling out of information sheets, among others. I realized after accomplishing all the required stuff that I was the most senior in the class (being senior does not necessarily mean being the oldest, thank goodness). I did not know if it was an advantage or not. Nevertheless, I made light of it because curiosity from my classmates and juniors would always be there. We all go through our own cross roads, I was at one point there, too. That is what I tell them when they ask me why I took the course only now.

Then I noticed the large number of male students (about 40 of them) compared to the females of only four including myself. The student-gender ratio was actually what I was concerned about since there are several physical requirements needed for the course. Let's face it, the male species have this biological composition in them that makes them run faster than the females. But I was delighted to find out that there were several overweight males in the class. This means, us females have a very good chance in outrunning them in the three or five kilometer run, outdoing them in sit-ups and push-ups because their heavy weights makes it nearly impossible for them to do the exercises at a faster rate.

Having had enough time before taking the course, I have also thought of what study or paper to pursue to save considerable time. For the duration of the course, one is given some time to conduct and research for the study. If one wants to relax ahead, then begin engaging in paper as it entails a lot of time collating data, respondents, survey, to cite a few.

I could have taken the schooling a year earlier but was wishy-washy about it because I found myself at the crossroads of my career that a lot are also experiencing. I did some soul-searching and weighing of options before I finally came to a decision to go ahead with the course which, I know, would be the go or no-go option of whether I intend to stay further.

For reasons of practicality, I decided to stay until I am able to optionally retire where I would be eligible for pension. In these times when job and money are hard to come by, people are compelled to stick to their jobs than be penniless. It is also a matter of how one loves one’s job and looking at the bright side of it than just gripe.

Then I realize there are good things about the service. When not on alerts, we have the most flexible time as we do not have Bundy clocks that we should punch our time cards day in and day out. A lot of individuals in the service are conscious about themselves, especially with physical figures, to be able to keep up with all the rigorous activities. We can also do physical fitness exercises on our own and still be on the payroll.

For a couple of months, I will have to do school activities and school work again just like any other student does.