This morning after practice I was getting ready for class and started thinking about how much God has blessed me through those around me. There's Anne, my best friend, who's always there for dinner, ready to discuss any topic that comes up, and who is willing to give up eating desserts with me when we try and get in better shape, and there giving me a hug and going for a run with me when life hits the hard patches. He's blessed me through the Schumachers, who are truely amazing people. They are there to guide me in my Christian walk, offer advice, discuss life and the army, and invite me up to the house to talk, pray, and eat shrimp cocktail and chocolate chip cookies after my bf and I break up. There's Coach Hanlon, who is willing to work with me after practice in the tanks on rowing, and who's office I can stop by during the day and talk to about my fear about CS380. My CS380 teacher, who opens his office to me and patiently tries to explain the concepts to me over and over again. God's blessed me through my family, my parents, who I can call when I need to cry on the phone about something, who always keep me in their prayers, and send me boodle boxes when I need or want something. He's also blessed me with amazing friends, who are willing to travel up to the 6th floor to give me a hug, IM me a special message when things are getting rough, and make sure that I am making time for God. Even though it seems like I'm barely surviving right now in a lot of things, God has really shown his love for me through those he's put around me.

I'd probably post more often if I had bloggar working on this computer, but for some reason the version I have doesn't work anymore, and I've been to preoccupied, or too lazy, to reinstall it.

Racing season started. Fun fun fun.

I feel like I'm in survival mode, just trying to push it out until summer, or maybe even graduation, which is in a year and two months. I don't know what makes me happy anymore. Classes, no. Crew, at least I it allows me some time to escape from thinking, but still seems to cause more stress than relief a lot of times. Perhaps that will change since we're off the ergs and on the water now. Anyway, genral feeling is that I'm barely hanging on and each day is a constant struggle for survival.

The John Mayer concert last night was pretty good. Guster opened for him. Adam and I ended up leaving around 10 because I had to finish setting up my computer and all the other electronic stuff I have on my desk. Plus, sad to say, I was falling asleep.

Today I prepared the wrong lesson for CS380. That was pretty frustrating because I do try in that class, but it seems like I'm always making stupid mistakes and I have a lot of trouble grasping the concepts. I went in for AI again this afternoon and that helped some with the project. I'll be very glad when this class is behind me.

Really good talk to night.

Tired, so tired.

I hope that Anne's platapus is found. She lost him in Florida. We had a funny conversation about him on Saturday night when we stopped in Emporia VA for the night. Random thing: I thought it was really late when at 10 that night Jordan said she was driving back to Rocky Mount to pick up on of her friends who was stranded there, but it was only 10 at night. I asked her how far away it was and she said about 40 miles. That seemed so far to me and especially to be driving that far that late at night, BUT IT WAS ONLY 10pm. Funny how things change. I miss spring break and all of the sleep, and it's only the first day back.

On another note, I don't want to live in NC, SC, Georgia, or FL. Northern VA would be okay, but only because it is a little hilly. I want to live where there are hills, or small mountains. So basically, no to the south.

Does spring break have to end? Tomorrow morning we start the drive back to school. The week has gone by fast, but it's been very relaxing. Basically all I did this week was sleep, row, and eat. There was lots of sleeping. Just about every night I've been in bed by 11, if not earlier, and today was the one day that I didn't take a 2-3 hour nap between practices. This morning at practice I saw millions of little jelly fish in the water, and also an alligator. The alligator was kinda scary since I've never seen an real on in the wild before this week.

I can't say that I'm looking forward to going back. I'm happy about getting to see Adam, and going to the John Mayer concert on Sunday night, but the work load is going to be a killer. It seems like I have a ton of projects and papers due in the next week or two.

Time to get to bed. Yeah, I'm a real party animal....or not.

So far spring break is pretty fun, except for some of the practices. Today we had practice at 6am and then had the afternoon off to go do whatever we wanted. It was nice to only have one practice instead of the usual morning and afternoon practice. Anne, Ana, Beth and I went to the Kennedy Space Center after we hit up IHOP after practice. The space center was fun, except it was during our usual between practice nap time, and so we were all pretty tired. In the evening some Captains staying at the same hotel as us cooked steakes by the pool and invited any of us who wanted to to join them. It was pretty fun, and the steaks were good. The main advice the officers all seemed to give was to not get married right after graduation. That seemed to be the theme of the day both in conversations with my friends and then at the cook-out. I don't really rememeber how my friends and I got started on the topic earlier, but once again the statistic that 75% of all marriages up to 18 months after graduation end in divorce. Last time I heard it, it was only 70% and 1 year, but the point still stands.

Happy St. Patricks Day.

Yay! I am now $30,000 in debt as of this morning. What am I going to do with all that money that I have all of a sudden, nothing for right now. Hopefully I'll start to invest it after I get back from spring break. Unlike a lot of my classmates, I am not planning to blow it on spring break, or buy a car...for now. Adam bought a car, so I'll mooch off him for it, that is, if I bring my CS380 grade up and have any time free from crew. Tthe cow loan is where they practically just give every cow $30,000 because it's a 1% interest loan that we don't start paying off until we graduate, and then it is over 5 years. In high school I thought it sounded so cool and was really excited about it. Now I don't care that much. My plan of action for right now is to forget I have it and continue to only use my paycheck money.

Tomorrow morning I leave with the crew team for spring break training in Florida. Yay! My parents are coming down and so I get to see them. Yay! No classes for a week. YAY!!! No seeing Adam for a week...sad. Hanging out with some of my best friends for a week. Yay!

Happy Founders Day.

Apple, peaches, pumpkin pie, who's not ready holler 'I'.

Good news! One of my TL's wasn't found on honor at his honor board yesterday. Very happy about that one.

We leave for Florida the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow is the last day of classes before spring break, today I have CCQ, and in an hour I have a PL300 WPR. Anne leaves tomorrow to go do her Truman interview in Ohio. I hope that goes really well for her.

I just made a connection between everyone cramming to get their sosh papers done before 1600 today and the sosh run. I guess I hadn't realized that it was today. Now I'm kinda sad that I have to miss it :( Oh well. I hope everyone gets theirs done on time.

Tomorrow is the big day. $30,000 at 1% interest. Yay for the Cow Loan.

Please pray for me and that I understand and pass CS380. Right now I don't know if I will pass. The concepts make no sense to me. I now understand why I am NOT an EE major.

The good news is that I apparently don't have a stress fracture in my foot. The bad news is that they aren't quite sure what is wrong. Apprently it may have something to do with the Lisfrancs joint. I had two sets of x-rays taken and on the 24th I have to go to a hospital off post to get a bone scan done. The doctor put me on a 60 day no running, jumping, marching, long standing, or apft profile. Yuck. He also said I could wear softshoes if they were more comfertable, but I don't think they really make a difference, so I'm sticking to regular low quaters. The upside is that I can still row.

I wasn't a really a baby blanket kid. Instead, I really liked to carry around those cloth diapers...the clean kind of course. Just call me wierd. Anyway, now I really do like blankets. They are so nice to cuddle up in, or with, as long as they aren't scratchy. Adam has a quilt that I really like and I'd joked with him about trying to steal it, and so last night I was over in his room and when I was leaving I pretended to try and carry it out with me. He of course saw me and I tried to give it back to him, but he knows I really like it, and so he's actually letting me keep it in my room for awhile. Yay :)

3 and a butt days till spring break :) Now if it would just stop snowing here.

4 days, only 4 days till Spring break. I have a feeling that it will be a very long 4 days. Spring break this year is going to be once again spent training with the crew team in Florida. I'm really looking forward to it, especially since my parents are coming down.

Last week I found out my summer assignment.
2 June - 2 July: Engineer CTLT at Fort Bragg, NC
3 July - 24 July: Home/ family vacation
25 July - 12 Aug: Small Unit Leadership Training (SMULT) at Fort Bragg, NC

The SMULT is also known as Robin Sage. This is an email from a cadet who did it last year:

"First it was a great experience, unlike no other I have had or probably will have. As females you never get to train with special forces, so this was a unique opportunity. The training is not hard, you really just do missions with the special ops. You are in the field the whole time though, I was out there for 13 days, but its not bad, the guys are really cool and you do cool missions, like 24hr recons and stuff. You get to kill your own chicken too. You learn a lot about how things should be from them too. They see things from a whole other perspective. You gain an appreciation and knowledge for what they do. They love to talk and tell stories.And they are soo cool, like I was calling officers by their first names because that’s how think things should be. It’s a very relaxed field environment too. No k-pots or anything, you carry an M-4 and wear black BDU's. its really cool. You can always do airborne or AA, but you will never be able to do this, so take advantage. Hope this helps, if you need anything else do not hesitate to ask. Best of luck!!"

Anne and Jamie also have it. I'm really looking forward to my summer now.

On a bit of a lower note, in 6 hours I'm going to have my foot looked at. I think I may have a stress fracture. It's been hurting for about 5 weeks now, and hasn't gotten any better. At least rowing doesn't seem to affect it at all.

MS = Maximum Suckfest

Military Science class is the bane of most cadets here. Yes, we do go to a military academy, but that does not mean that we were granted with some gift of knowledge and suddenly able to spit out perfect Warning Orders and OPORDs with barley any teaching. MS is where the Thayer method is most implemented, but in the worst way possible. Their teaching method is to give us a homework assignment, one very vague reference, and then fail us after we don't meet their detailed grading criteria. No joking, I'm pretty sure that more than half the Corps has a C or below in the class, and probably 25% are at a D or F. It is only after we fail that we find out what they were looking for, and what we were miraculously supposed to have known without any teaching on the subject or any real way to find out what they wanted. Somehow tonight I have to come up with the perfect concept of operation and scheme of manuever for a tank platoon defending against an enemy motorized rifle company. I have absolutily no training on tank platoons, and so therefore have no clue how to write a very detailed description on how I plan to destroy the enemy. I'll do my best, but until an hour ago I didn't even know the organization of a tank platoon. Hopefully, after failing the WARNO and only then being told how to write one, I won't do as bad on the Situatin and Mission.

To top it all off, the class is only worth 0.5 credits. However, it does play a very significant part in your class rank when everything works out. But seriosly, I've been working on the OPORD I have due tomorrow for 3 hours, and I still have a long way to go, and it's only worth 50 points. AUGH!

Wow! It's a Title

2k time again.....

Yes, I realize the above post has no correlation to the title.

It is so nice out today, and was so nice out yesterday. Right now the temp is 63 degrees, there is nice breeze, and blue sky. Spring is poking it's head in the door at long last. It's great kite flying weather.

What is not so nice is not knowing my summer assignment. Am I going to Florida with the crew team over spring break to train there, or going to Fort Benning to do a CQC MIAD. What I'm scared of is being stuck with Air Assault, not passing it, therefore not being able to row in the fall, and then missing out on spring break training next year with the crew team. I'd rather just do CQC right now and get that requirement out of the way, plus do some awesome training. However, if I tell my coach's that is what I want to do instead of train in Florida I feel like I'm letting down the team and putting my own self-interests above the team, especially with so few varsity girls actually going on spring break this year.

This morning after practice Coach pulled me aside and asked me if I would be the S1 for next year. I'm not sure what all that entails, but I agreed to it.

On Sunday I went to see The Passion. It was moving. Other than that I don't know how to describe it. It does not fit into the terms "It was a good movie" or "It was a bad movie." I'll just say It was.