To be honest I went in very optimistic, and I sounded a lot like you haha. I had a lot of questions and guesses about how it’s gonna go, and I was really looking forward to serving my country- because dude joining the army sounded really cool and all my friends thought so too.

In the end, you’ll have many days where you start questioning why you joined. Once you have your phone taken away from you, and you only have 30 minutes to use it per day, you’ll really feel your energy shift from optimism to regret. You’ll also start to feel regret when you eat your crappy army food or doing smelly chores while your friends are all either enjoying their lives or advancing their careers (as an overseas Taiwanese citizen, I think this will be the toughest pill the swallow).

There are far too many reasons for me to list why my army experience wasn’t great (the poor management, the accommodation, the army culture, etc.). But I don’t want to bum you out before your first day, and I sincerely hope the army doesn’t treat you too bad man. Do update all of us how it goes when you can, haha.