Woohoo! I have 3 strips and black shields on my shoulders now :)

It's cute, the plebes are too excited to sleep. Tomorrow they finally get promoted. Almost all of the firsties are awake as well, but taps for them was only 10 minutes ago. I'll finally be a firstie, but sleep for me will be no problem at all tonight. I'm really tired and can't wait to get to bed.

Tomorrow I'm going back packing with Leah and Celio in the Catskill Mountains till Monday. Should be a good time.

Last night at West Point for 2.5 months.

Yes, I do like spending $1030 on plane tickets....wait, no I don't. Carlson Wagonlit told me I was taking a bus down to Fort Bragg for CTLT, but apparently there is no said bus, which I found out today. I therefore just spent approxemtly $1030 on plane tickets from Newark to RDU for Wendesday, and then a month later from RDU to Detroit. Had I had time to think rationally, I could have used United instead of Continetal and flown into Fayetville, NC, which is much closer to where I need to be, but I called Continental first and so I'm ending up flying into an airpot about 75 miles from my final destination. It will all work out somehow. The flight was only a small part of the stress accumulateing due to CTLT. I am not 100% sure what branch I am going to be with, I have no clue what unit, I have no contact information except for one LT inviting a bunch of cadets who will be at Bragg to a BBQ on the 12th, I have no clue where I'll be staying on post, and I don't know my way around post or have my own method of transportation. This is all so very reminicent of last summer and trying to figure out details for my AIAD, except this time I have even less information to work with. My new motto "Trust God and things will work out somehow." I have a feeling that there will be many more times in my life where I am in a situation like this, have very little or no information, and have to wing it on my own.

My sister is, as of today, the great age of 23. Happy Birthday Betsy!

It's wierd how Betsy is 23 and Heidi is 24, yet they seem so much older to me. I have friends who are their ages, but my friends seem so much younger because I put them on my level. My sisters seem much more mature and sensible. The same goes for my sister's friends. Will my sisters always seem 10 years older than they actually are to me? I really admire both of my sisters. They are awesome people, and kinda my mini-role models in some ways.

Things left to do, in no particular order:

meet Amanda for lunch
go to C-store
DX ruck frame
pack bag for CTLT
pack ruck for SMULT
strip bed
pack computer away
finish packing room away
find info out about CTLT
turn in rifle
wish Betsy a Happy Birthday
spend time with friends

Yesterday Anne and I went out on opps to get her car inspected to meet NY state insurance requirements. She'd gotten directions from one of the guys in her company, but we couldn't find one of the roads and ended up driving for about 2 hours looking for the place. The good part is that now we know our way around the area a lot better than before. When we were driving back in Washington Gate the guard asked for our ID's as usual, and then as we were about to drive off he said "You have beautiful green eyes." I was not really paying attention to him and assumed he was talking to Anne, but as we pulled away she said "he said that to you." We argued about who he said it to because she said she had blueish eyes and that he was looking at me, and I had just assumed he was saying it to her. I finally came up with the solution that there was a person sitting between us that we couldn't see, but who the guard apparently thought had beautiful green eyes. I hope that extra person in the car didn't mind the extra hours of driving around lost.

This morning was my last parade as a rifle bearer. Tomorrow I don't have to carry anything, and after that I'll have a saber. Yay!

Why do 80's styles have to be coming back? I was trying to forget that decade of fashion faux pas.

Everday this week feels like a Comm's Saturday because we're done with classes, but we still have stuff to do in the mornings. This week is better than regular classes because once drilling and parading are over in the morning, there are no more mandatory events. The firsties have it the worst. I overheard one of them saying that they hadn't been able to sit down for more than 15 minutes since they woke up, and 10 of those minutes were for breakfast. I should add that breakfast formation was at 4:55am this morning, so they have been up for a while. There are a ton of rehersals and other mandatory events for them, on top of trying to move everything out. I am really looking forward to finally being a firstie, but now that I've heard them saying that grad week sucks, I'm not looking forward to this time next year as much. I'm still hoping that the fact that I'll be graduating will outweigh anything else.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETSY!

Who am I around people? Around those who I am not very good friends with, I feel like I show one side of myself, and then to my close friends I show another side. There is the side of me that tries hard not to complain, especially around others, because I believe that ends up making the attitudes worse, and thus the situation worse. But, then there is the side of me that spills my troubles to my close friends, and recently that pile of troubles has seemed enormous. I guess I seem to come up with a new one every day, or perhaps twice a day. Unfortuantly, most of my sharing of my troubles has landed on one person, and I've driven them somewhat away, when what I've really wanted to do was to become closer to them. It really hurt when I realized that I was getting the same treatment from them that I was giving, undeservingly, to another one of my close friends. It hurt realizing they were doing it to me, and it also really hurt realizing it was exactly what I was doing to someone else. I'd been distant and non-talkative to one person, and one person had been that way towards me.

This whole mess leaves me wondering where to draw a line in my life in when, where, how, and how much to share my troubles, and when to keep them to myself. I don't like talking about them, in person that is, to people I don't know very well, but I need to stop sharing them as much with some people. I'm tempted to try and act like nothing ever bothers me, that I am always happy, a paste a permenant smile on my face, around everyone, be they close friends or not, but that is not the real me.

A summer away I think will do me a lot of good, but I'm having a hard time with the fact that it is a whole summer away. When I really want something I tend to go after it with everything I've got until I reach that goal. I can't accept quiting or giving up. A very small example was one time I had a certain dvd I wanted to see so I decided to go and rent it. The store had them all rented out, so I drove to another one nearby. They didn't have it either, so I drove to a store to see if I could buy it. That store din't have it, so I then proceeded to drive across to the other side of the city to stores over there to see if they had it and I could buy it. I don't think they had the movie either, but by that time I'd spent a few hours searching for it and was out of stores to go to. While I was searching for it I felt this need to continue one till I found it. I couldn't sit still or stop until then. What is bad is that I often try that approach with friendships/relationships, and push to try and become closer friends. However, that is probably the worst approach, and ends up driving the friendship apart. I keep repeating that mistake.

I used to post everything here, and use this to spill my troubles, but now I limit myself to only certain ones and types. I want a way to share them with someone so that I don't keep them all bottled up, but not overwhelm anyone and not fall into a trap of troubles builiding upon troubles. I also alot of times just want and ear to listen to me and arms to give me a hug when needed. I also don't want it to just be me always talking about myself. Here all I do is talk about myself because that is what I have this blog for, me. It annoys me when, in person, all someone talks about is themself, and I hate it when I find myself doing that.

I think I have a mini-stomach virus. I've felt kinda sick since Sunday night and it hasn't gone away. I'll feel fine for awhile, and then it will hit me and I'll be doubled over again. I won't go into any more details.

Yesterday I spent about 8 hours working on stuff for the crew banquet. 5 of those hours were spent in the basement of Thayer working on the finishing touches for the program and place cards. It looks like it will be a pretty fun banquet this year.

I found a place to stay instead of transiet barracks for my 3 nights between graduation and CTLT. The S's are letting me stay at their hous, which is very nice of them. I hope I can manage to stay out of the way.

I got my PL300 grade back today and found out that I got an A on the TEE, which also happened to be the second highest grade in my section. The highest was an A+. The A raised my grade in the class to a B+. My final grade breakdown for the semester is as follows:

CS350	A-
PL300	B+
MS302	B+
HI302	B-
CS385	C+
CS403	C
CS380	C

The semester turned out better than I thought it would, which I can only attribute to God being very merciful and the tons of prayers I recieved from friends and family. I'm so glad those classes are over and I never have to deal with them again. CS350 was actually pretty fun, which is probably why that was my best grade. I also enjoyed PL300 because my teacher was awesome and made the class interesting, hence the reason it is my second highest grade.

On a completly different subject, anyone who thinks that cadets actually like drilling and parading is crazy and has never endured the torture themselves. I once read an article somewhere where the author actually made the claim that cadets enjoyed it, and had actually organized a parade for someone. I really hope the author was being sarcastic. I understand that a parade may look nice, and it is a little nice to march in front of people and have them be amazed, but the hours of drilling that goes into one parade, especially during grad week, makes it torture. I also think is has to be boring watching parades. After you've seen one, you've seen them all. Brigade reviews must be especially boring to watch, because it's 30 minutes of the cadets who all look the same, marching in front of you. What is even worse is being in 4th regiment and knowing that the people in 1st regiment will already be taking their showers by the time you finally get to march off the plain. I admit, I'm a bit bitter right now due to the hours of drill and parading we'll have to endure everyday this week. Today was an easy day with drill only lasting 1.5 hours, having it only be double regimental, and only having to go through the whole parade 3 times. Once the brigade drill starts, the real torture begins. I apologize if I just hurt anyone's image of cadets at West Point. I came here thinking drill would actually be fun and enjoyable. That thought lasted about a day.

This evening I started the packing up process for the summer. The first step was to clean out my trunks and my trunk room locker. I threw out tons of trash. My trunks and desk contained about 4 meduim trashcan size trash bags, while my trunk room locker contained 2 huge trashbags worth of trash. A lot of it was paper and binders. I also threw out some books, although I didn't really want to. I don't like throwing out books because I always feel like I am wasting them, but right now space is more important.

My desk is currently a mess, at least on the surface. The drawers are completly empty,save for a pen or two. The area around my desk is also a complete mess, as well as the majority of the rest of the room. Alyson packed a lot of her stuff last week because she has mini-buckner, and now Jillian and I are starting our packing. I think a tornado would have left the room cleaner.

My main problem is going to be my books. I have a ton of books, and a lot of them I don't want to get rid of. At least half of them are CS books, and my fear is that if I throw them away I'll need them later on when I am working on a project. I don't have space for all of them, plus altogether they are really heavy. Oh well.

I managed to pass all of my exams, and actually raised my grade in all of my CS classes. My lowest grade ended up being a C, and my highest grade was an A-. I'm still waiting on my PL300 grade, but I'm guessing that will be either a B or a B+. I'm so glad my classes are through for the semester and I never have to take CS380 or CS385 again. My class schedule for next year looks awesome since I dropped down to an FOS and got to choose classes I'm interested in.

TEE leave was fun. I went camping with Amanda, Adam, and Alicia. I think I should change my name to one that starts with an A because the people I tend to hang out with the most have names that begin with A. Odd. My dad also came up for 2 nights on his way home from a buisness trip. It was really nice to see him again. The only downside of the weekend was it rained every night. We managed to stay relatively dry, but there was some dampness. We made a fire every night and made s'mores and other good stuff. It was a lot of fun. Yesterday we went and saw Shrek 2, which is a hilarious movie. It's just as good as the first one, if not better.

Tomorrow morning is a fun fun brigade run. I'm hoping for a thunderstorm, but of course that never happens. One time it did rain, but since there was no thunderstorm we still ran. Actually, I prefer running in the rain when it comes to running in formation. It adds a bit of cynicism which actually helps make the run better because we all are cynical together.

My teacher for CS385 is the anti-christ in disguise. For the TEE he too out his metal baseball bat and said "I'm going to beat you within an inch of your life with this thing for the next 3.5 hours. Don't worry, it will be lots of fun. I love doing this and you should to. Here, have a little piece of candy in the middle so that you don't die half way through. That way I can keep beating you for the full 3.5 hours. What? You don't enjoy this and spend every waking minute thinking of how you can be beat up even more? Let me try hitting you a little harder with the bat to see if that helps the motivation."

I passed!

I think I figured out how I communicate best. It's by computer. Yikes! Does that make me a really nerdy person who spends there waking hours in chat rooms, eating junk food, and getting out of shape, while being anti-social in real life? I sure hope not. Anyway, it just hit me. I can talk a lot when I talk to my friends on IM and write emails, but in real life I usually keep my thoughts more to myself. I guess I like the computer better because my fingers can keep up to my mind. My mouth, on the other hand, spits out a jumbled mess in a very slow manner. Okay, I exaggerat a lot and really I can communicate fine, but I am more quiet then some others.

Please pray that I pass CS380 tomorrow morning. I need all the help that I can get in that course.

I can tell that I'm stressed by 2 things. First, I am even more quiet than usual, as Anne noticed tonight at dinner when she asked if I was feeling all right, and I take things more personaly. Plus, I keep chewing on things and breaking things such as pencils in my hands. When I'm stessed I destroy pencils, bite my nails, and chew on pens. I don't remember doing any of those things due to stress until I came to West Point.

I'm 3.5 hours through of 17.5 hours of exams in four days. One test and one day down. 4 tests and 3 days to go. Hopefully Mil Art is over and I never have to think about that class again. Yay! That's a nice thing about taking it a year earlier than most of my classmates.

My printer sucks! I never know if it is going to work properly or not. Somtimes is prints fine, and then other times it prints out garbage. I have to reinstall drivers all the time. Now it's printing out garbage, plus telling me that there is no paper in the tray when I just put more paper in there even though there was paper in there before. I've wasted so much paper on this stupid thing. Right now the copy function works fine, but last week it took me about an hour on my computer to try and get the scan funtion working again. It used to be an awesome printer. Now I'm tempted to see if it will fly.

I've been studying for CS380 for the past few hours and have barely made any progress. I still don't know or understand most of the material. The book is basicaly useless, my notes are basically useless, and I have no idea what the questions on the TEE will be like. I just need a 50% on the test to pass the course.

Tomorrow I have Mil Art in the afternoon. Tuesday I have CS380 in the morning. Wednesday I have CS403 and CS385, and then Thursday I have PL300 in the afternoon.

Tee week, fun, but stressfull. I can't wait till TEE leave when this is all over and I can get out of here.

Since I did so bad this past semester, didn't like my courses, and didn't understand them, I've dropped down from majoring in Computer Science, to a Field of Study. That means that next year I can take a lot of electives in classes I like. I won't have to worry about classes such as Operating Systems or Compilers. Hoepfuly the change will make life a lot better.

This morning I woke up and immediatly felt like any little thing today would set me off. Little things seemed to annoy me. However, I'm not one to explode, or even really express my anger or annoyance unless it is in a calm manner, or I am completely alone and can punch my matress to my hearts content. I guess I keep things bottled up, which is not a good thing. I then proceed to think about where I'm coming from as well as where the other person is coming from, if it is somehting involving somehtone else. Considering their viewpoint helps me stay calm and decrease any levels of emotion I'm feeling. If it still bothers me later, it is then I will talk to the person and in a more calm and rational mode tell them what is bothering me. The bad part is that sometimes I wait awhile and so a few things pile up and they all come out at once, but I'm more composed. I wonder what it'd be like to just blow up at someone. I don't even know if I could, because the whole time I would know that they most likely did not warrent everything and I was letting other factors interfere. When I do find myself getting annoyed or angry, I usually have to do a check of myself and see what other aspects of my life may be bothering me and leading unfairly towards my wanting to chew out someone. If there are other factors, then that is a definite sign I need to step back and deal with myself first.

No clue if any of that made sense. I'm going to bed.

Finally the last week of classes is here. Next week is tee week, followed by grad week, and then the summer. I just hope that I survive till then, and pass all of my classes.

Right now my name is up in the weight room in Arvin Gym for having the top 6000 meter erg time for women in the class of 2005 according to the Cow Fitness Challenge. Normally I'd think it was a cool thing, but this actually makes me a bit ashamed because my time is about a minute slower than the time of previous years. I'm almost convinced that I'll be replaced on the board after this last round.

Tomorrow there are no classes for Reading Day. It's a new thing, and so far we are all loving it. A day with no classes the week before TEE's. Time for sleep, study, relaxation, study, sleep, fun. Awesome.

This evening was the last OCF meeting for the year. It's so sad to have to say goodbye to the firsties as well as the S's. I don't want them to leave. I don't know what I'll do next year without them around.

I have a sractch on my arm from climbing a tree this evening. It was very peacefull and relaxing up in the tree, and I think I'll climb one here again sometime. When I was little I loved climbing the ones in my yard. Tonight I was wearing flip-flops when I climbed it, but I could hear my mom's voice in my head telling me not to climb tree's in flip-flops. Sorry Mom.

This evening for OCF we went over to the Schumachers house. It was a very fun time. For dinner Leah made mac and cheese, and Celio and MAJ S. grilled hamburgers and hotdogs. Today is Amanda's Birthday, so we all sang happy birthday to her. Then we had our Bible Study on Ephesians 5:5-21. After that Mrs. S. gave an abriviated version of a talk she gave this past weekend on water and light and the relationship they have to God. It was extremely interesting. I love talking to Mrs. S. She knows so much and is so helpful, and gets me to think, and helps me sort stuff out. I'll really miss all of them next year :(

We didn't get to go out on the water this mornign because the river was too low. The coaches were going to have us wade the boats in, but decided against it. They weren't afraid of us getting too cold in the water, although the water is barely above freezing, but instead their main concern was that it would be very muddy and the boats would get mud in the seat tracks.

My right ear hurts again and is a bit swollen on the inside. For some reason this is happening more and more often. By that I mean 3 or 4 times in the past year as compared to never before. I wonder what causes it.

Only two weeks of classes left. YAY! I just hope I pass all of them.

The regatta this past weekend was interesting to say the least. The water was horrible. On Saturday my race, the women's V8 race was the first one, and my boat was in the secon heat. In the first heat a boat actually swamped and I'm not sure if they have even recovered it from the lake yet. My race was the hardest race I've ever rowed. Waves were crashing over our head the whole time, I could only row half a stroke for probably 25% of the race, and I kept execting Dana to tell us to drop a pair. After the heats for our even they postponed the rest of the races until Sunday. On Sunday they ended up cancelling the whole regatta because the water was still horrible.

It was very nice seeing my parents and spending time with them. I wish I could see my family more often.

I think my gut instinct may be wrong for once, at least I hope that is the case. This time I confronted the situation and found no basis for the feeling. Perhaps it was just the chicken crispitos.