Friday, April 30, 2004

Not playing the violin in a few years certainly makes one's ability to play a bit rusty. Matt let me borrow his violin this evening and so I was trying to play a few pieces that I used to know. Although I knew the music in my head, my fingers were not following along very well. I managed to get some music I know off the internet and was trying to play it, but I was having trouble with that. One of the pieces my fingers had trouble finding the right notes, and so I just need more practice, but the other piece the music was a bit different than I remembered and so I had even more trouble. If I borrow Matt's violin more often, hopefully everything will start coming back to me.

I got my CS380 WPR back today and recieved an 83/100. My teacher ended up giving us all extra points for the last problem because so many people bombed it, but I still would have gotten a 70/100 with out those points. I now have a passing grade in the class. Praise God!

This coming weekend is the NY States regatta. My parents are coming to it. I can't wait to see them :)

Today was a very beautiful day. Crew practice was awesome. The scenery was gorgeous.

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Is the year over yet?
What I should be doing right now is my reading for Mil Art, but instead I've been browsing the web and looking at different sites for the past 40 minutes. I'll get to Mil Art eventually. Tomorrow's lesson is about counterinsurgency with two readings: "A Strategy of Tactics" by Andrew Krepinevich, and "Evolution of Strategy" by GEN Westmoreland.

This afternoon Dana and I went for a short ruck march. Anne was supposed to come as well, but she was stuck at a social all afternoon for the scholarship class. Dana and I only did a little over 3 miles, but I increased my ruck to 59 lbs. CS books are definetly the way to go if you want to get the most weight in the ruck.

Recently I've had some interesting discussions with adam about how my mind works. I think a lot, but am not a real talkative person, although I do have my moments. Along with that, I over think a lot of things, but not the important things like homework. I'll sit and analyze something for hours, pondering it, questioning it, trying to figure it out, and figureing out the reason. If I try and explain it in words, I can't seem to get it out fast enough, or slow my thought process down enough so that I can express it. I get lost really easliy when I'm trying to explain stuff because all the while I'm thinking I'm also going off on little tangents in my head, and so trying to talk and also think about multiple things and once doesn't work. Writing is a little easier because I have time to pause, think some more, and go off in my different directions in my head before I come back to the main topic at hand.

The only thing I've found so far that I've found I like to study like that is the Bible and religous material. I read a small passage and it will send me off in some other direction, coming up with questions that I then think about and try and figure out, and eventually either I'll set the question aside for the moment, or else have looked into it enough where I've started to come up with an answer. Then I'll go back to the original passage and try and read a bit more, which will then set me off on another search. It takes me awhile to make it through anything, but I find the whole proccess rather enjoyable and I learn a lot.

Saturday, April 24, 2004

Busy day today. Practice this morning went pretty well. First hour I spent doing the last bit of studying before my CS380 WPR second hour. The WPR didn't go so well. The last question especially killed me. All of us came out of it with a bad feeling.

This afternoon I went down to Ike with Shawn and picked up two vans for the crew team for our trip tomorrow. Then I headed up to the Commisary with Jamye to pick up food for the crew BBQ in the evening and breakfast sunday morning for the team. The crew BBQ seemed to go pretty well, and Lisa and Jamye, both firsties on the team my plebe year, were back to visit.

Adam's parents are here for the weekend, and later in the evening we all played a couple cribbage games together and sat around and talked for a bit. It was nice, although after the cribbage game I felt bad when I reverted back into my quiet self. They are very nice people and it was a fun evening.

I want to go camping again sometime. By that I mean camping in a tent, not in an rv, or in a patrol base. Just a relaxing camping trip in the woods, with a fire, in a tent, and no stress.

The Sandhurst competition is tomorrow. Beat the Brits!

Patriots this weekend.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

We voted this afternoon at practice for next years captains, but they aren't announcing the results until Saturday evening.

The water was pretty bad again today and so we were on the erg. Coach had us doing 20 one minute pieces with one minute light rowing inbetween them, and 3 minutes of light rowing after the first 10 were finished. It was a real smoker, plus my times were horrible. At least he wasn't recording the scores today.

My CS380 teacher handed back our latest homework set. I got a 43/50 on it, probably because I was one of the few people who handed it in on time. I've calculated it and figured out that I need at least a 70/100 on my WPR on Friday to finally start to pass the class. If I somehow manage the impossible and get a 100/100, I'll have a C- in the class. Right now I'm less than 1% away from a passing grade. Lets hope it doesn't go down again.

Today was the spring Sosh Run. Although nobody rappeled off the roof of the barracks or set themselves on fire this year, there were a few decent costumes. I think the best was when one of the guys had the British Sandhurst team to carry him on their shoulders and then have the rest of the team marching along side with their rifles.

Sandhurst is this coming weekend, and once again I'll miss it because of a crew regatta. I think my company has a pretty good team this year.

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Yesterday we had morning practice for Crew, and so Anne and I were going to go on a short, pretty light ruck march in the afternoon. We figured it'd be a good idea to start getting used to rucking again for this summer. Jen, one of our teammates who is going to Air Assualt this summer, sent out an email in the afternoon telling everyone that she was going on ruck march and invited anyone to join her. Anne, Jen, and I all ended up going on the Ruck march together. Our original plan of 3 miles soon turned into a 6 miler, which included going up some of the biggest hills, the biggest being the one up to stony lonesome. It was fun, but tireing. I weighed my ruck when I got back, and I'd been carrying 40 pounds. That's a little more than I would've normally started out with, but I was just stuffing my CS books into my ruck to make it heavy and didn't bother to weigh it before hand. Midway through the ruck march I realized two things, the first being that today I'm supposed to seat race, and the second being that I'm still on profile and not supposed to be doing somehting like that. It was a little late to do anthing about it, so I just continued on.

Today's the big day...1600-1800 is when it counts.

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

It was pretty obvious when Brian got engaged because almost all of the guys in my cs classes started ragging on him, but I was quite suprised at dinner tonight when Anthea congratulated Tyler on his engagment. Did I miss something in my cs classes today? There was a definet lack of guys making fun of him, except for one instance, but I don't think that had anything to do with him getting engaged. Perhaps I'm just slow.

It was in the 80's here today :) The weather would've made a great day to row on the river, but the water was horrible. There were huge swells and whitecaps. Perfect swamping water. We erged outside instead.

Last Thursday at dinner my table was multi-national. We had our two regular French cadets eating with us, and then a member of the British Royal Navy School, whatever it is called, also eating with us.

Yesterday, Adam and I went up to the PX and we bought a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle kite and then flew it outside. It was a great day to fly a kite.

Monday, April 19, 2004

Yesterday at the regatta Mike Bogdan came over and said hi. He goes to the Merchant Marine Academy and is on their crew team. In high school we had some mutual friends, but didn't really know each other. Now we run into each other at a few of the regattas. He told me that Jodi was engaged. Wow! Congratulations Jodi. I'm so bad at keeping in touch with people.
I really don't write in here very often anymore. Life's been crazy I guess. The days and weeks all blend together. Today at the regatta I had to ask two of my teammates if Easter was last Sunday or the Sunday before because everything was all blurred together. Although it's nice getting out of here on the weekends, I don't like the fact that I'm missing so much Church.

Mere Christianity is an awesome book. I started it in high school, but I don't think I made it past the first page. On Friday I started it on the bus ride to the regatta and have gotten so much out of it.

I got a passing grade on a CS380 project! It's only a c-, but it's better than a D or an F.

Freedom isn't free. (Sticker on my bookshelf)

Bedtime.

Sunday, April 11, 2004

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

" Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.''

-Winston Churchill