Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Update: It's a stomach virus. I made it to the parking lot for PT, but then threw up on the way to the field. After that I felt a bit better so decided to do PT, but take at easy. i told my TAC about it. During streching I started to feel sick again and so my TAC NCO came over and told me to go back to my room. Since Rachel drove this morning I could only go back to the car. I sat in there for an hour, and at one point had to get out and take a good look at the asphalt again. When I was finished the Battalion Commander happened to be walking by and asked if I was okay. He told me to go to sick call if I was feeling sick because there was no reason for me to be in class, but I don't want to miss class and sit in sick call all day. I think I'll go to class, talk to my TAC about it, and hopefully be feeling better soon.
This morning I woke up at 4:15am and realized that I felt rather weird. After a few moments I further deducted that I felt nauseated. Nothing has come of that feeling except for feeling even more sick, and not being able to lie down because it makes the feeling worse. I have therefore been up since 4:15am. To top it off, today I was supposed to sleep in till 5:25 because first formation isn't until 5:40am. The reason for the later formation is that the APFT just got changed to this Thursday. Originally it was to be next Thursday, but we found out the change yesterday afternoon.

Monday, August 29, 2005

I spent way too much money this weekend on my car, a dress, and new running shoes. I once again remembered that I really dislike shopping for clothes.

Friday, August 26, 2005

So far at OBC I've learned that there are different strengths of rubbing alcohol. but no matter what the strength eventually inhaling too many fumes will make you feel sick. Right now I have my window and door wide open trying to air out my room after cleaning off my acitate with rubbing alcohol and nail polish remover.

Another thing I learned is that my class likes brownies, and baking brownies may get me a free dinner. I've baked brownies for my class twice so far. The brownies are chocoloate brownies with a caramel middle and chocolate chips. Very rich, but people seem to love them.
When I've made the brownies I've also shared them with some people I know in other classes, or rather some people I've seen in other classes who also live on the same floor as me in the VOQs. One of the guys thanked me for the brownies by taking me out to dinner tonight. We went to an italian resturant that had really good food. The dinner was nice, and he gave me advice and tips about being deployed and being the army in general. He also was really nice and supplied me with some more rubbing alcohol after I ran out this evening, so I gave him an extra brownie that I had left over.

I checked the air conditioning in my car tonight and found that it needs to be refilled again. Oh joy.

Joe Bear may be going to OBC sometime in the future, although I just thought of one problem. He's supposedly branched infantry, but this is MIOBC. Perhaps he'll do the service-time for branch option and go MI.

Last night I had a dream that my class was going on a run, but we were split into two running ability groups. My TAC would be leading one group, and DPE would be leading the other. I was not happy about DPE invading my dreams.

Tomorrow my squad has to give a 30 min briefing on our mission analysis on military operations other than war. MOOTW is far more interesting than the conventional fight. It reminds me of some stuff I did last year in my CS classes.

Now I am just typing to type when I really should be getting to bed. Bed, sleep, gooooood. Night.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

At the moment I am extremely tired seeing as how I woke up at 1am last night and barely dozed for the rest of the night. Since I am very tired my perception of myself is quite skewed right now. Currently I feel like a complete idiot, but who knows if I actually am one. Probably, but in my current state I can not fully make that determination on my own about myself.

Now back to cleaning my pro-mask.

Monday, August 22, 2005

All day I've seen away messages with "RIP ________, '03" on them and even read the news release about the incident (ied in Afghanistan). The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't place how I would know her, until I read Jordan's IM profile and realized she was my 1st SGT during Beast. Her brother is a fellow '05 grad.
And I'm back...

We got back from the FTX around 9pm last night. Rachel and I wanted to go out to eat, but had made 8:30pm the cut-off time for that idea, so instead we ordered pizza and cheesy bread. We were both exhausted, but I stayed up and did laundry till 11:15pm. This morning I woke up at 6:50 and was extremely tired, but decided that since I was already awake I'd go to the early Church service on post with Kate and Jordan. They had a project they had to work on later in the morning, so an 11am service was out for them. I tried my best to stay awake and alert during the service, but my mind kept wandering because I was so tired. When I got back I ended up going back to bed eventually and slept till 1:50pm. I'm planning on being pretty lazy for the rest of the day, although I may go grocery shopping with Rachel.

Overall the FTX was fairly easy compared to other ones I've been on at school. The only new thing we did was convoy operations. While I was kneeling in the back of the open HMMWV with my rifle pointed out the side and basically only my own ability to stay balanced between me and falling to the road going by below at 35 mph I suddenly thought "I don't think my mom would think this is very safe." That didn't change the fact that I found that part of the FTX the most fun and the most applicable, but I did find it a humerous thought.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

I passed the Mission Analysis Briefing and now I'm getting ready to go to the field until Sat night. My ruck seems really light and empty, but I don't think I'm missing anything from the packing list. The packing list is nice in that unlike West Point it doesn't make you take the kitchen sink along.

This morning we were released at 9:30 until 1:30 so that the final few people could present. I came back and finished watching The Prince and Me and then took a nap. I must have been really out of it because I didn't even hear the cleaning lady come in and refill the paper towel roll and leave new towels. Usually I'll wake up to someone knocking on the door.

Congratulations Charlie on making your first jump at airborne school! I hope I'm able to see the guys (and Jasmin?) over Labor Day at Jordan's borther's wedding in AR. I'm still waiting on details so that I can sign up for pass and buy plane tickets.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Tonight may be an all-nighter. Not cool. This is OBC. Everyone said it was easy, and it is for everyone except my class. Yay for not being a paste-eater : Þ

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Woohoo! It's friday. The downside is that I have a ton of work to do this weekend, but at least I can sleep in tomorrow. On Wednesday I went over to Viv and Natalie's apartment and baked brownies for my class. I enjoyed baking them, and my class really enjoyed eating them. Rachel also likes to bake, so we may have a little baking competition going on. This weekend I may make the class some danish puff.

Next week is going to be a Thayer week, minus the whole West Point thing. Monday and Tuesday are our Mission Analysis briefs, which is what I'm going to be spending the weekend working on. Then, on Wednesday we go out to the field till Saturday night. It sounds like we'll be lucky to get an hour of sleep a night.

At least I don't have a SAMI and A-day parade tomorrow. Everyone at West Point, I'm thinking about you and wish you luck.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

This morning was the diagnostic APFT. I did much better on this one than on the initial one a month ago.
43 PU
68 SU
16:21 2-mile.
Total = 274 pts


Instead of asking why, ask these two questions:
God, what are you trying to teach me through this?
God, what are you trying to change in me through this?

I heard that on a recording I was listening too. Unfortunatly I can't remember what recording it was that I was listening to at the time. I do need to stop asking why all the time though.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Sisters are great. I think I'll keep mine. Talking to Heidi this evening cheered me up. I love you Heiko. I love Betsy too, but I didn't talk to her tonight because she's in Scotland.

Monday, August 08, 2005

It's weird not having to go back to West Point now that the academic year is starting. The new cadets march back tomorrow and everyone else is back at west point already.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

This morning I woke up on my own at 5:50 am. I wasn't too thrilled about that, so I lay in bed until 6:30 when i finally managed to doze off till 8:30. When I woke up the first time I realized that I'd been dreaming about enemy Weapons, Equipment, and Organization (WEO), and couldn't stop thinking about it even though it was all wrong and very annoying. I just wanted to sleep.

This afternoon I went horseback riding for the first time ever. It was a lot of fun. My horse liked to lead, but I didn't like to be in the lead since it was my first time riding. Jordan usually lead, but if I was in the lead and tried to let her pass me, my horse would go faster until he was in the lead again. Afterwords I took a nap and then Jordan called me and woke me up to invite me to dinner with her and Kate. We tried to get ahold of Rachel and two other girls who went riding with us, but couldn't reach them.

Thanks for the package mom! :)

Friday, August 05, 2005

The good news is that my sister Betsy finished up all her cancer treatment recently. The bad news is that the Family Cold (aka hodgkins disease = cancer) has decided to branch out to a cousin of mine on my mom's side of the family. He is stage III and just started chemo. Have I mentioned that I hate cancer and wish it would leave my family alone?

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Today's class was a lot better than last week. The instructors have realized that my class needs to learn some basics before moving on to enemy Course of Action (COA) planning. Originally my class was not going to have a formal block on Opposing Force (OPFOR) Weapons, Equipment, and Organizatoin (WEO), but the course director has changed his mind. Today we started our week-long WEO block, and I found class much more interesting and understandable. We still have homework and a bunch of stuff to memorize tonight, but at least I understand this stuff so far, or understand it more than I did the other stuff we've done besides Army Ops.

On a different note, today my TAC-NCO annoucned that he was going on leave for a month becuase his father is starting Chemo and he needs to be home to help his mom out. Him mentioning chemo rubbed a raw emotion a little. I wasn't about to break down this time, but I do remember a few weeks ago sitting in class during a break and all of a sudden I started thinking about Betsy's experiance having some tubing removed and how horrible it was for her and I almost broke down. Stuff like that hits me occasionally, but not too often.

Running during PT was hard for me today. My whole body felt heavy, especially my arms. They felt like lead weights, and my legs turned into lead weights on the last half of the run as well. Everyone else seems to be improving a ton, and I feel like I'm getting worse at running.

Monday, August 01, 2005

My weekend:

Friday night Rachel, Jordan M., Kate W., and two other recent MIOBC west point grad arrivals, had a girls night out. We were originally going to go to Applebee's for dinner and then see Must Love Dogs, but the wait at Applebee's was too long, so we ate at the food court in the mall and then went to the bookstore there before the movie. Kate, Jordan, and I didn't like the movie very much because there was a basic lack of a few moral values, as well as no solid groundwork for the relationships in the movie.

Saturday I woke up to Jordan calling me at 9:30am to tell me that we might not go to Tombstone that day due to the possibility of stormy weather. I couldn't get back to sleep, so I watched tv and finished my homework. Around noon I went shopping for some new running shoes, but didn't find any that I liked. Jordan, Kate, and I did end up going to Tombstone in the afternoon, and while we were there we had a old western picture taken of us. We choose to forgo the bar-girl western look, and instead were gun slingers dressed up in cowboy hats, trench coats, with a pistol and a shot gun. The picture will probably remain buried in the bottom of one of my trunks. I look like a giant standing between both of them (I'm a head taller). After that we went back to the movies and saw Sky High, which Kate and I enjoyed, but Jordan found it a bit annoying. Following in the movie we had dinner at Outback, and then I came back and did laundry till midnight.

Annah invited me to go to some caves Sunday morning, but I told her I couldn't go beacause of Church. Sunday morning I went to my usual Church services, and then came back and watched a bit of TV. Nothing was on, so I ended up taking a 3-hour nap. Rachel came over at 6 and I grilled hamburgers on my George Foreman grill. Now I'm sitting here writing this and watching what appears to be another storm approaching.