There's an opening coming up for my platoon as we pass out from our Basic Signallers' Course next week, to spend a year in Brunei, doing goodness-knows-what.

I wonder if I should scuttle off to Brunei for a year, and hide away, in a self-made wonderland, away from my home, my family, my friends, and all the structure that I have come to know as being an indispensable part of my life.

I wonder how it'll feel like, being completely away from home, cut off from the world outside; all that I have come to take for granted: instant communication (ICQ, SMSes, the telephone, and the Internet), instant gratification (with all the material comforts of civilisation within easy reach, and at most 5, 6 days away at the end of a week in camp), and so much more.

Will I truly be able to think about the world, contemplate life and its meaning, the world and its workings, and learn more about myself? Will I be able to truly find myself?

I wonder what will happen when your world takes an about turn, swallows all you've known all your life, all you've built up, and spits out a brand new world for you. Will I be forgotten? Will I become just a figure of the past in the worlds of those I have lived in?

I wonder.