psychologically evaluated!

i was kidding. of course i'm not gonna tell you how stool sample are collected! take a container, and your imagination, next time you have to go, and figure it out yourself.

the best part (or was it the worst?) of the 1st aeromedical, was the psychiatric evaluation and test. the test took us one whole day. we spent the morning answering 500 questions, and the afternoon, another 500 questions. all 1000 questions were to be answered with the options of 'true/false' or 'yes/no'. by the end of the day, i had no idea what was true or what was false anymore. this test is used to evaluate the mindset of the candidates and the mental condition, of course. basically, the results say if you're sane or insane, or if you're leaning a little towards the insane side of yourself or if you should be locked up immediately. and the trick is to be honest. they were basically questions of what would you do in a certain situation, or your feelings on certain issues. i cant possibly remember every question, but i do remember the few that struck me. one was, 'do you think you can fly?' gets you thinking, doesnt it? you would agree that was simple, the answer is no, of course, with a smirk and the song 'i believe i can fly' on my lips! another was, 'do you think men cheat?' you dont have to think to answer that one! the humor of it was, later while discussing with everyone, apparently, all the men asnwered 'yes' as well! go figure! at least, everyone was being honest, you have to give them that! one other question was, 'do you have trouble swallowing?' it would have been a little easier if they would have specified what exactly are we swallowing. but, we figured it out after the test when, one of the candidates, a certain Major, one of the most calibred and most fun to hang out with, suddenly asked me in front of all the other guys, 'vanajah, do you have trouble swallowing?' with a wink! naturally, everyone in the room burst out laughing! people like the Major and the laughters in between the stress that we had, are the things i remember the most out of that week, now.

the psychiatric evaluation was another ball game altogether! i only wish it was as simple as the test! there were, not one but, two of them. it was a personal session, but not the regular i-pay-by-the-hour-and-pour-out-my-troubles-from-a-couch type of session. it was almost a torture session, at least it was for me. their mission was to bring out the worst in you, psychologically! and evaluate your reaction.
from the beginning, i made my lifestyle very clear to everyone. i had nothing to hide about my life, especially for this program. i had no trouble with that because i've always been very open about my lifestyle with anyone i meet. and the first and foremost, and ongoing thru out the program, warning from dr. zul was 'be yourself! if you try to be something you're not, we will find out, and you're out of here!' who could pretend after a warning like that. and i could not be pretentious even if my life depended on it. based on my lifestyle, i was attacked the most by the doctors. i could handle that fine because i've had a lot of practice defending my lifestyle to people. almost everyone i've come across in my life had disagreed with my beliefs or way of life.
but when they started prying about my family, that's when they got me. i grew up with my grandparents till i turned 20, and then went to live with my parents for a couple of years before i left home to university. my grandparents are almost my parents. till today, i still address them as ma and pa. at home, when both my mom and grandma are around and i call out, both of them will answer. the part that got my hands shaking and eyes tearing was when the doctor handed me a piece of paper and pen, and told me to list down how much i love each of them, in percentage! i was outraged and torn inside! and at the same time had to force a polite smile the whole time only not to break down in front of the doctors. till that moment, i had no idea how much the sharing of my love among these 4 most important people in my life had affected me emotionally. did i grow up trying to prove my love to my parents who thought they had to compete with my grandparents? or trying to convince my grandparents they're no less than my parents? maybe i did. but it has never been as clear as it was on that day. i took the pen and hurriedly wrote, so that they wont notice my hand shaking, 25%, 25%, 25%, 25%!

that day, i came out from the room after the session, somehow, feeling a little lighter. it must have been the so accurately calculated 25% ...

the meaning of aeromedical ....

aeromedical mean lots of needles and pain! not to mention sitting endless hours waiting for your turn among 59 people! and taking off your clothes to strangers! thank god they're all doctors. doctors are not strangers, they're simply doctors. that kind of definition makes it easier to take off your clothes in front of them!

we were all bundled up in a bus and taken to the royal air force base in sungai besi for medical tests. blood test (ouch!), vision test (another ouch!), audiometry, chest x-ray, ecg, echocardiography, dental and others (which gets worse, with more ouch's!). i havent even heard of half of these tests, leave alone know them. my only thought was, my body and its medical condition is beyond my control at this point. so, stop the worrying and enjoy the ouch's as much as i can. if they find anything negative about me, medically, it's the nature's way of telling me i dont qualify to go to outer space. simple, you'd think! not, i tell ya!

i tried all i can to go thru it all with an indifferent attitude, but people around me made it hard. there were some who worried to death of a certain result, some showing complete confidence in themselves and their health, some who knew they failed immediately, some who argued their health conditions, the list goes on. it was becoming the main topic of conversation at the dinner table every night. as i see it, everyone was left to worry about their own conditions than to worry about competition. which brings me to the quote of the year from the candidates to reporters, 'we're competing with ourselves'. i'm sure the reporters were pissed off with this particular answer from most of the candidates when they were trying to get some juicy details of our experience and the competition among us to emerge as a winner, because, let's face it, the downright point to all these is, who's gonna win the title and emerge as the qualified astronaut!

but, my thought at that point was, we were all qualified to go to outer space in a russian soyuz, and back, to make a historical name for the country and be the pride of the nation. my only wish is that everyone on that list of 59 amazing people understood that .... no matter what the stool sample results came back as. that's right, we had to shit in a container! i bet you'd like to know how that's done!

coming up next! stool sample collection! stay tuned!

after a year ... the story continues

after dropping off the blogger world for a year and more, meaning the angkasawan part of my life, it's refreshing to be back. what prompted me is a close friend's visit from canada last week, whom i havent seen in 3 years. we sat and talked for a week, and naturally, one of the subject was the angkasawan program. as i've told the story, at least once a week, to many around the country for 8 months last year and then completely stopping due to my move to sweden, i was amazed at how much i missed telling the story and how excited it made me feel all over again ... it's magical how some experience in life stays freash with you no matter how far you move away from it. i guess i havent moved too far from it ...

therefore, i'm back.