Do I overprotect myself? Today at Coach Hanlon's house some people were watching Hannibal in the basement. Last year for some stupid reason I bought that movie with out seeing it. A few months later I decided to see if it was any good. Five minutes into it I turned it off and gave the movie away to a friend. Watching it I experianced revolsion and a feeling of uncleanliness. Anyway, so they were watching it in the basement and part of me wanted to see it because I was curious, but I didn't. I did have to go down to the basement to get a different movie and saw a small part of it and part of me wanted to stay, but then the feeling came back and I went back upstairs. It's like I don't want to associate with anything dark or evil and I see that movie as evil. I don't know how to explain it. As Betsy once said " Silence of the Lambs had a purpose, but that movie only serves to glorify evil" or something like that. Okay, I guess this isn't a good example for me overprotecting myself because I don't think I should be watching those types of movies anyway.

I'm just arguing with myself for no reason. One part says that since I don't indulge in activities such as drinking, smoking, pointless relationships, that I am becoming socially inept and weird. Yet, as pointed out by many people many times, that is not the case because I find different ways to have fun with my friends.

As I told my parents last weekend, I feel like I'm supposed to live my life adhearing to high moral standards and be an example for people. I have no clue if this is actually the case, and if it is then why.

WARNING KATE! You are thinking too much. Stop at once or risk harm.

Recently I've noticed that I'm really hungry for news of the outside world. One of the things I really like to do is sit down and reading the whole NY Times.

Golly gee wiz, I love Saturday morning physics tests at 7:30am. At least it's not at 6:35 any more like it was supposed to be. Right the majority of the yuk class is studying their butts off for this cheerfull occasion. If only we could have a few more of these. Oh wait, we do. At least the test gets us out of the Regimental run that everybody else has to do tomorrow morning at 5:20. After the much looked forward to test I have a parade and then a mandatory football game to go to. Supposedly the Army Team is "the pride and dream of every heart in grey." I'm sure they would be if they start winning a game sometime. Having to stay and watch the football team mess up and lose is pretty demoralizing. The Comm made it mandatory for everyone to go to the games and stay to the end after the Alma Mater is sung. If only it was a Michigan game.

Today at crew practice we did a three mile head race from Con Hook to Duck Island. He had us in two eights racing against each other. My boat rowed really well together and I felt a lot better rowing than I have in a long time. When Coach Hall said that I was in an eight today instead of the quad I was kinda sad and dreading the race, but even though I pulled 100% the whole time I wasn't dying half-way through the race like I expected I would. It was great. On Sunday I have to row a 2k on the erg with Annah because I didn't row one yesterday because of the APFT.

Now it's time to go back to studying physics. I'm trying to decided whether to make some popcorn or not. hmmm?

YAY!!!! The APFT is done:) I did 35 push-ups in 2 min, 69 sit-ups in 2 min, and a 16:46 min on the 2-mile run. Usually I get around 40-45 push-ups, but around 6 were not counted and I also had to go down a tad bit lower than I usually do. The sit-ups was an all-time best and the run was my second best one, but my best offically counted one. Overall I raised my score by 1 point from my last APFT for a new offical high. Each APFT I'm improving a little. I'm so glad it's over.

It's sprinkeling outside and the weather is definetly cooler than it was a few days ago. I'm really nervous about the APFT, as always. At practice this afternoon we're supposed to do a 2k, but I don't really care about that at the moment. If you get a bad time on one 2k you don't get kicked off them team. Eddie is coming over and then we're going down the Amaka's room to meet up with her and Keegan before we all go down together to take the APFT. Right now I can't wait for the day that I never have to do PT again, but I have a feeling that day won't come for a long time, if ever. I can just see it now being at a nursing home when I'm 90 years old and them waking us all up at 5am to go for a nursing home run/walk/hobble/push. I wonder if they have PT tests in Heaven? I sure hope not.

24 hours from now I'll be done with the APFT. Tomorrow I'm going down around 1:40pm to take it. I'm nervous. What if they cut a lot of push-up's and I don't get 25, or 19? The past few times I've gotten in the 40's, but I've been hearing of them cutting 5-20 push-ups a person. I'm also nervous about the sit-ups. The past few weeks I've been running, but I'm still scared about it. I want to do well, or at least make sure I'm not marginal. Augh! Wish me luck.

My mind has been tainted. I feel dirty. Okay, not really, but I didn't need to see all of that. Of course, as Annah said "she does need to grow up sometime," but I doubt that's the way:) I do just fine growing up on my own. Maybe I am a little socially stunted and all, but at least I didn't have 2 kids this summer to raise or move into the gehtto and spend tons of money on tatoo's last year like my sisters did. Actually, the kids were baby goats that Betsy helped raise from the petting farm and they were really cute even though I only saw pictures of them. The tattoo's were from Heidi's cancer treatment. Before she had cancer she lived in Detroit working for a Christian school. My only claim to fame is that my parents decided to kick me out of the house and send me to a military school. Oh wait, this was all my choice. I can't blame them at all, but I can make it sound like I have such a troubled family life :)

This week not as busy as last week was, but there still are stresses such as the APFT and physics WPR plus a few projects.

This whole not liking a guy right now thing is great most of the time. My emotions are a lot more level, but occasionally I still wish I liked someone and that he liked me back. I'll just have to wait for that person to come along. I wonder who it is? What if there is no one and I grow up to be a single old women with 10 cats? I don't even like cats that much. Dogs are much better in my opinion. Kittens are okay, but eventually they grow up. I don't want to be all alone in a nursing home when I'm old with no family to visit me. Okay, I'm scaring myself again. Time to stop. Things will all work out somehow and Ill be happy in the end. No pain no gain. I guess cats are okay...

Time for class. I heard that today we're watching a movie. yay!

Today the Econ lab convinced me that I need to start budgeting my money. Now I need to figure out where to start.

My company was missing around 100 people at lunch formation today. It was at 11:55 instead of 12:05, but they forgot to tell us. I'm happy to say that my platoon had the most people at the formation.

Formation was early because Prince Andrew and people (meaning a bunch of stars) joined us for lunch. He gave a 10 min speech where he read a message the Queen sent to us, and then talked a little on his own. Sad to say, but most of us zoned out of all of it because the speech was full of weird analogies about how Britain and the US are even stronger allies since 9-11 and something about a town in texas and a town in England. It was cool that he was here, but most of the girl's I've talked to were hoping that the thing the Queen sent was Prince William and not a speech. He didn't make an appearance at lunch.

Today was the day of interupted sleep. This morning someone decided to call my phone 3 times at 5:30 in the morning. I woke up just as Tara got up to pick up the phone, which proccedded to only have a dial tone. Today at practice Abby was telling us how she was taking a nap when her TAC decided to knock twice on her door and wake her up. She awoke to find that her TAC was talking to two Venezualen Generals outside her room and wanted to show them it. She was glad that by the time she got around to opening the door they were already walking away down the hall.

Mark is getting on me for being quiet. He sees me in the hall and yells "hi Kate" and tells me how he was just talking to some people in the company about how quiet I am and that nobody knows me. Perhaps I should make more of an effort to get to know the cows and firsties. He's also convinced that there is no possible way that my roommates and I have not had an argument yet. Our personalities are so different that he can't understand how we get along. Tara is really loud, I'm really quiet, and Alyson is in the middle. I think it works out perfect. I'll get louder as the year goes on and I get to know everybody more.

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WTF?!?

AUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't tell me it just lost everything I wrote.

Today on the way to her last class right before lunch my roommate, Tara, ran into Prince William in Thayer Hall. I'm not sure if she actually ran into him, but that's what she said. Who knows. He's at West Point right now and tomorrow he's going to be talking to my friend Shannon's EE class. I have no idea why they want him to speak to an EE class, but I'm not the one who makes these decisions. What actually makes more sense is that a lot of people are saying the Duke of York is here also. That is Prince Andrew and perhaps he's the one who's actually supposed to be talking to the class. The question still remains, Why?

Being royal must really be a pain sometimes, or most of the time. Every action you do is watched and you're hounded by the media all the time. Oh wait, that's the same as life here. I have a new found apprection of how much it royaly sucks, and I don't have it hardly as bad as he does. Okay, my life and his life don't really compare, but I'm just trying to say that I'm getting sick of being watched every moment and feeling like I live in a fish bowl and I only experiance a tiny bit of what he must experiance every day.

New subject. I have an APFT this week and am really scared about it. People tell me that I'm in shape, but I don't know if I believe them. Augh! We'll see how this goes.

The other day I was in the C-store and I went to the second floor and saw General Brooks up there. He was talking to someone and saying "you don't want to where brown leather shoes with black pants because they don't go together." The person replied "It's like my mamma always used to say..." and then I walked out of earshot to look at the cd's. A few moments later I saw them pass by to go look at some clothes and saw that it was the Frist Captain with him. I never pictured the a cadet and a General shopping together, no matter what the cadet's rank. It was pretty funny and for the rest of the day I had a pretty good laugh over the Commedant telling Ricardo Turner what to buy.

This evening I went over to LTC Surdu's house and had dinner with him and his family along with two other cadets he sponsor's. After dinner we all played UNO and I ended up winning the first 3 games. It was a lot of fun. Since LTC Surdu is taking command and a new post at the end of this year LTC Phillips, my DAC, offered to sponsor me. It's pretty cool.

I hated saying goodbye to my parents yesterday afternoon. Last year I didn't want them to leave because I dreaded returning to the rigors of academy life, but this year I hate to see them leave because I truely miss them and love spending time with them. I'll see them again, along with my sisters and friends at Thanksgiving. Only 2 more months.

Tonight my parents and I went and saw Apollo 13 at the IMAX theater in the palasadies mall. One the way back I fell asleep and woke up just as we got back to West Point. When I got up to the company area there was a group of yuk guys gathered right outside the orderly room and they started talking to me. Since I was still half asleep they were convinced that I was drunk or had at least had a few drinks. It took me a few minutes and a little waking up to get them to belive that I was not drunk, did not drink at all, and actually never have or will drink until I'm at least 21. One of them then proceeded to tell me that next weekend I'm going with him to a tailgate where there's a lot of drinking. I laughed and said no. They all probably think that I'm even weirder now, but at the moment I don't really care.

Today was a good day. I had the first three hours off and managed to take a nap, but didn't sleep very well because I'm not used to taking naps anymore and was really anxious that I was missing a class or something.

Today in philosophy I started thinking about a different dimension. It's the spiritual dimendision. All around us there is a war going on, but we can't see it except for a in a few occasions that God opens our eyes.

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Mommy
Happy Birthday to you.

Yay! I get to see my parents today :) They are coming up for the Michigan Parents Club tailgate after the football game tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to spend some time with them tonight since it is my Mom's birthday.

I think that this past week was the busiest week that I've ever had. What made it a little more bearable was that I've decided not to do the early morning practice everyday. I can't handle getting up at 5:10 every day and only getting 5-5 1/2 hours of sleep. My body requiers 6. Every other day I'm gonna sleep in until 6am and do the afternoon practice right before the real practice. It feels great knowing that I can sleep in until 6. There was a dramatic difference in my ability to function and stay awake in class.

The outlook for this season in crew is good. Coach Hall put Beth, Molly, Abbie, and I together in a boat because we are the smallest people on the team and our personalities also mesh well. This season we'll row both a four and a quad. I'd never sculled before, but Wednesday he had us go out in the quad. It was really awesome and I felt like I was getting much more of a workout. It started out pretty shaky because it was something new for both Molly and I and Abbie had only one day of experiance, but by the end of practice we had improved a ton.

My day:

5:10am wake up
5:10-5:25 brush teeth, bathroom, contacts, shoes, ect.
5:25 go down to Mac Statue to meet Laura and Margret
5:30-6:05 run to Lee Gate and back (3-4 miles)
6:05-6:40 shower, strip bed, dress, put books away, send out laundry
6:40 go down to breakfast formation
6:40-7:18 breakfast formation/breakfast
7:18-7:25 go back up to 6th floor to room,get books, brush teeth
7:25-7:35 head to class
7:35-8:30 Physics
8:30-8:40 walk to LTC Phillips office
8:40-9:35 Offically declare CS as my major and organize courses up through Firstie year
9:35-9:45 walk to Math class
9:45-10:40 Math class. Major Farmer tells me that since I'm the only person who did all of the suggested problems I can leave if I want to, but I stick around because I didn't understand all of the concepts on the board sheet.
10:40-10:50 go from 3rd floor of Thayer to 4th floor of Bartlett Hall
10:50-11:43 Wellness class.
11:43-11:50 rush back to room, drop off book bag, change shoes,
11:50-12:27pm Lunch Formation, Dean's awards, Lunch
12:27-12:35 rush back to room, get new books and bookbag,
12:35-12:45 head to Robinson Aud.
12:45-1:20 DMI Introduction to branches briefing
1:20-1:35 bathroom, quick stop in Thayer bookstore
1:35-1:50 walk to CPT Allmond's office
1:50-2:45 Initial counseling with CPT Allmond, assigned 2-3 page paper on personal couarge due Monday.
2:45-2:55 walk to Economics
2:55-3:50 Economics
3:50-4:07 go back up to room, drop off books, change for practice, bathroom,
4:07-4:15 walk to practice
4:15-6:20 practice
6:20-6:30 drop crew bag off in Alex's room, head to dinner
6:30-6:45 dinner
6:45-7:10 come back to room, find Tara in a lot of pain, search for someone in chain of command, talk to Steph on IM
7:10-7:20 shower, get dressed
7:20- present type this
Still to come- make bed, couseling with Sabia, homework, prepare physics briefing, shine brass, clean rifle, and get ready for In ranks layout tomorrow.

It's been a very busy day and running on 5 hours of sleep did not help one bit. I've decided that I'm not going to get up for the morning practice tomorrow and instead do it at 3:30pm. Today I've had the headache that comes when you're really exhausted and need sleep. At least it's almost over and I can stay in my room and pretend to relax.

Attention Male Bachelors: Male cadets needed to entertain some lovely ladies as they present themselves to high society. All classes are eligible. Ballroom Dancing skills are not required (but HIGHLY recommended). Here is your chance to mingle in High Society and represent West Point as the premiere institution for producing Gentlemen that any mother-in-law would be proud of. The Debutante Ball will be held over Thanksgiving break in Washington DC.

I never expected to see that in the Brigade Daily Notes, but there it was today. wow.

In less then an hour I'm going to go meet with LTC Surdu and then LTC Phillips and probably make my choice about majoring in CS. All of my friends are telling me I'm crazy for wanting to major in it and that I'll hate it, but that's also what everyone said about me going to West Point and I I love it here.

I can't bring myself to say hi to Erich and if I see him I always look away and I'm not sure why. A few days ago I really needed help in physics because there was a big writ the next day and I didn't understand a bunch of stuff so I IM'd and asked him for help since I've heard he does really well in that class. He said he had a lot of hw to do but might help after that. He never did and so I ended up going to Reggie as usual and we kinda guessed our way through it together. I guess I didn't need Erich's help after all because I got a 90/100 on the writ.

This weekend I'm going to the Jersey shore for the Lutheran Retreat. I almost didn't get to go, but at the last minute my RnT got approved. We leave tomorrow after classes and get back around 3 on Sunday. I hope that I can sleep and relax a lot this weekend.

Time for me to go beddie-bye. It's been a long Thayer week, especially the past two days.

The worst part of getting up in the morning is making yourself actually open your eyes and sit up. I'm averaging 5 hours of sleep and am not use to it yet. The really sucky days are the ones where I only get 4 hours of sleep. Sleeping in seems like a distant dream.

Tomorrow I'm meeting with LTC Phillips to decide if I want to major in CS. When I say that that's what I'm thinking about people cringe. I don't know if it's because they hated the CS class last year or if it really is such a hard department. Probably a little of both. For a moment I thought of majoring in Nuclear Physics because the name sounds cool, but then I remembered that I don't really like physics.

Tired, want sleep, only 13-14 more hours, clac, a philosophy wpr, econ lab, practice, mandatory dinner, then homework, and I can go to bed again.

This clip is the best I've seen done on the subject matter.

Matt is awesome. He keeps me sane a lot of the time. If I call him and am having a bad day, by the time I get off the phone everything seems better and less significant. There should be more people out there like him.

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The worst guilt that I have is that both my actions and my inaction ended up causing my friend to go through one of the hardest things she's ever had to go through. I wish I could go back and change everything that happened. Why did I have to be in shock at that moment? Maybe I have something akin to survivers guilt and what will soon happen will help ease that because I'll suffer some of consequences. I don't know what's going to happen to me, but I know that I've dissapointed myself and my TAC. I have no one to blame but myself because although I could not control the actions of my friend, I could control my own actions and I think that I choose the wrong ones. I have to live with this for the rest of my life, but at least I know that I've learned something from it. It is possible for good to come out of the situation if you look hard enough.

I miss him. Sometimes it seems like we've run out of things to talk about. I don't want that to happen. Are we both just too busy? He's my brother. I don't want to lose him.

Stressed.

Two a day practices started today and I'm hurting. I got up at 5:10am this morning so I could get down to the boat house by 5:30. We then lifted weights and stuff untill 6 and then came back, took showers, and got ready for breakfast. Last night I got to bed around 1am because I was finishing up my Wellness nutrition project and realized that I hadn't done my physics.

It all would have gotten done much sooner if I hadn't paid attention to Annah when she came in my room to drop of my math book that she had borrowed. What was supposed to be a 10-20 min trip with her down to the mess hall and then to Grant hall to get dinner ended up being me eating mac and cheese in her room with Tia and Kristen. After I ate to be funny I hiked up my shorts like steve erkle and suddenly they were daring my to walk across central area, touch Pershing Barracks, and come back with them like that. After a 1/2 hour of them daring me to do it and getting the bet up to $20 I finally decided to go for it. As I have said before, don't be afraid to make a fool of yourself once in awhile. While I was walking across the area my squad leader happend to walk right by me with a friend and give me a really odd look. The guys who were playing basketball were laughing so hard that some of them rolled on the ground, Annah took pictures from her window, and also IM'd Beth and told her to look out her window. When I got back I said it was worth $25 now becase earlier Tia had bet me $5 that no one would even notice and they definetly had noticed. After me chasing her around the room a bit and a little shouting I realized that there was still half of the blueberry cheesecake left and asked if anyone else wanted anymore of it. Needless to say, it ended up in Tia's face and hair along with splattering the windows, walls, and floor. It was hilarious. She just stood there for a moment and then started shouting about how I wasn't getting any money now. All of this was done very good naturedly and we were all having a good time shouting at each other. One of Annah's roommates asked if we were drunk. The story spread very quickly throughout the crew team and so far all but one of my teammates think that I should still get the $20 because what I did was far more humilitating.

I wonder what my proffesors would do if I did this?

Tired, so very tired. I really want to write about my day, but my eyes won't stay open. There are people in my room right now watching a dvd, but I think I'm going to go to bed anyway. Maybe I'll write tomorrow.

What are my roommates and I doing up at 1:39am on a Friday night? You'd probably guess partying, right? I mean, hey, we are college students and it's the weekend so 1:39am is actually not that late. Well I've got news for you buster. We've decided, for fun or course, to forgo the usual late night partying that goes on here and instead stay up late and have a great time cleaning. I mean really, what is more fun than sitting outside in the hall shining my hat brass at 1am while I wait for my floor to dry after Tara moped it? This is of course so much fun that the people in the rooms around us decided to give it a try too. They must be having a great time also because we're all still up and cleaning. You should try it sometime. The way to have the most fun is to make sure that you and your roommate(s) have the same iteams in your drawers and that they're folded and placed exactly the same. Hangers need to be spaced out evenly throughout the closet and all buttons must be buttoned, except on shirts because then it's only the top button. Desk drawers and overheads should be neat and orderly. The floor has to be swept and moped. Swiffering it many times helps a lot also. Every single surface must be dusted. That includes desks, drawers, behind drawers, behind desk, bed, bed springs, door knob, door bolt, bookshelf, chair, hats, computer, phone, camera, picture frame, ect. Books on the bookshelf must be in height order and pushed to the back with the tallest on the far left. Windows and mirrors must be clean and free of any smears or smudges. Newspaper works best for cleaning them. Shoes and boots should be shined to glass and aligned under the bed with the toes right at the edge of the bed. Aligning them with a broomstick works the best. Laundry bags can only be up the 1/3 full and no fair hiding anything in there. If you have a rifle make sure that it's clean and that the strap is loose. Beds should be made as tight as humanly possible and should of course all look the same. Nothing can hang on the walls. The floor and the walls must be free of smudges and spots. Believe me, this is really fun. Although I love doing it all myself I am willing to give someone else a chance to experiance the fun next time I decide to forgo my usual weekend partying for this.

Just to clarify, my usual weekend partying consistes of watching a dvd and being in bed around 12. Yes, life here is a blast.

I ate too much at the crew BBQ, but it was really good food. There were a lot of salads which were awesome, fresh fruit and veggies, corn mash stuff that was really good and filling, hot dogs and hamburgers, cookies and cake, and other good stuff. I filled up on the salad, fruit and veggies and then dug into half a hamburger, 4 cookies, and a slice of cake. My stomach feels like it's going to explode.

Tonight my roommates and I have to clean for SAMI tomorrow morning, but right now I'm really not in the mood to clean. We already have most of our clothing drawers in BAG, but we still have to arrange our medicine cabinets, desk drawers, overheads, dust, sweep, windex, and aliagn hangers and button/unbutton clothes hanging up and make sure they're in the proper order. What I really want to do is sit back and watch a movie with some friends, but since I don't think I'll be able to do that I'll probably just have a dvd playing on my computer while I clean.

The flood lights just turned on outside. The sky is a dark, clear blue color that lightens as you reach the horizon. There are a few pale whitish-pink wisps of clouds in the sky that provide a nice contrast to the blue evening sky. The black of the tree-line has the most stunning effect against the light blue of the horizon.

I still can't spell very well, my grammer is atroucious, but I've chosen to ignore those things while writing this. If I concentrated on being techniclly proficient it would detract tremendously from my ability to write and vent. I have this as a way to get my thoughts out and possibly even share them with anyone who cares to read. I am a rather quiet person in person so this gives my friends and others a chance to see a side of me that they normally would not get to view. I don't care who reads this, or even if no one reads it. I'm writing for me. It sounds rather selfish actually, but I've found it to be very helpful. Before last year I was never much of a person to keep a journal. Beast showed me that letter writing can be very helpful and is good way to relieve stress and relax. Every night I stayed up almost an hour after taps writing letters to my family and friends. That stopped once the school year started and the rigors of academics started. Then in February Matt introduced me to Blogger. I started out writing a soap opera type blog along with my roommates, but that proved to be too time consuming and once my mom found out about it she asked me to stop because she said it was too risky. A little later I started this blog and have written in it ever since then. Hopefully it will still be around in some form or fashion years from now so I can look back and read about what my life was like. This is who I am. The good and the bad. Not everything is writtten in here, but a lot is written.

Friday afternoons without class are the best. After lunch I can come back to my room, read the New York Times all the way through, watch CNN, and relax. It's great to find out what's going on in the world because a lot of times I have no clue.

Happy Rosh Hashanah.

Today in philosophy Dr. Tramel had us look at two valid arguments proving the existance of God and also saying that there is no God. Although the proofs showed they were technically both valid I didn't really like either of them. The assumptions made were rather broad and opinionated it seemed.

As we were doing that I started to think about something that seemed hard to convice. The fact that God has no beginning. He's always been there. It was much easier to compreheand the fact that He'll always be there, but for something to have no beginning is almost unimaginable. No, I'm not saying that I doubt the fact that God had no beginning because I don't doubt it. I just find it very hard to compreheand because everything I know of has had a beginning. My problem is that I'm trying to fit God into linear terms and find it impossible. God is not a number line, but that's the closest thing that I can think of to logically compreahend the matter. He goes from negative infinitey to positive infinity. Right now it takes faith for me to believe this and will probably always be this way. I just find it cool to think about.

I think that I actually did okay on my physics writ today. All of the calculations were correct and everything. The one mistake that I made was that I forgot the SI units for frequency so I made it meters instead of Hz. Capt Morgan handed back the Econ writs today and I got a 91/100 on it. The class average was 82/100, so I was happy, but it was a pretty easy writ and I made a few stupid mistakes.

Since I currently have no love interests so right now I'm focused on Amaka and her's. It works out pretty well because I still feel all the excitment and stuff, but don't have the stress and worry or such emotional extremes. He's a nice guy. She's a nice girl. They'd be perfect together. It's funny because relationships here tend to revert back to grade school instead of becoming more grown-up and mature. I thought that I was the only one who acted and felt the way I did, but now I know that at least one person here is similar to me. Thanks Amaka. (ps Swimming Buggy)

Today at practice we pulled a 6k on the erg. My time was 26.01.9 minutes. I keep comparing myself with other girls on the team which is something I need to stop because it does not help me. Tomorrow we're back on the water doing drills and then the crew team is having a BBQ. Coach Hall said he want's to try and have one every Friday in order to promote bonding between the different teams, especially the guys and the girls. He said that success will be measured by the number of guys on the team that we know by name. This from the man who repeatedly tells us that boys are bad and to not have a boyfriend. Yesterday he told Jes and I that a lot of high up people are pushing for crew to become a corps squad sport. That has both positives and negatives. Positives are more authos (from the 79 we have right now to possibly 140), more funding by ODIA (new uniforms, sandels, other cool stuff), a little more respect in some ways, possibly guard authos (the coaches still would want us to drill, parade, do ccq, and all that bad stuff though. oh well), and team tables during mandatory meals. The bad would be tighter regulations controlled by ODIA and NCAA, possibly less money, a little respect could be lost in some ways, and who knows what else. All that aside, Coach Hall is talking to General Brooks, the Comm, about next fall. His latest and greatest idea is for us to practice in the morning at 5:30, have staybacks from breakfast, and not have a class first hour. Since practice would be done in the morning the afternoon would be free for drill :(, study hall, or weight lifting. Once again, that has both pro's and con's which I'm not going to get into.

Erich and I talked on IM tonight for a little while. He's doing well, but his computer just had everything erased by Goldcoats because he had to take it in for repair. I guess his disk space was all filled up or something. Anyway, it sucks.

The theme for madatory dinner tonight was Toga Party. My roommates and I all dressed up and I even had the wreath thing going on my head. It was fun to look stupid for a change. This web page got sent around the corps today so that everyone would know how to make a toga. Gotta love Thursday night Spirit Dinners.

I really should be in bed.

Kate go to bed.
Yes Ma'am!
That's Corporal to you 3rd class.
Corporal, may I make a correction?
Yes
Yes Corporal!
Now greet and get to bed.
Yes Corporal! Beat Holy Cross Corporal!
I'm in your company.
Corporal, may I make a correction?
Yes
Go Cowboys Corporal!
I'm in your plattoon.
Corporal, may I make a correction?
Yes
Make some noise Corporal!
Raise Hell! Now go to bed.

Wow! I'm one ate-up yuk, plus I'm a nerd and a tool. I just hazed myself. I should haze myself for hazing myself. It's catch-22. I'll just stop now.

A few Corps favorites:

Peanut Butter Jelly Time
Part 2
How I actually dance

From 6pm until now I've managed to eat dinner, watch the simpsons, take my TA-50 back down to the trunk room, swim for 40 min, shower, pull a 500m peice on the erg, do my physics, put my latrine locker in BAG, put my drawers in BAG, shine and edge dress two pairs of boots and one pair of shoes, remake my bed with my comforter, talk to Jasmin for about 5 min when she came to visit, start to read my econ homework, record all the food I ate today and calculate the different things for my wellness project, send Bowlby and email with what we're doing for FCDT tomorrow morning, eat an orange and some marshmellow cups, and look at a few funny sites on the internet. It's been a busy night and I haven't done my calc, wellness, or econ homework to standard. Tomorrow morning I have a physics writ and I really need to do well on it, but I don't think I will.

Yumm, chocolate. If only it weren't so bad for you.

Yesterday Coach Hall told us that today we were going to row down to Bear Mountain Bridge and back. I was half looking forward to it and half dreading it. Annah asked me to get down to the boat house a little early so that she could work on timing in the rowing tanks. As it turned out Coach Hall had me ride in the launch today. He was going to switch me in half-way through, but since I ended up being the only person not rowing he didn't want to break up the boat unity on the long row so I didn't get to row at all. They rowed 8-10 miles total, got to turn around under Bear Mountain Bridge, and I missed out on a great workout and row:( Jess and I are supposed to go swimming later tonight if the pool is less crowded and she's supposed to really smoke me with this workout she has planed.

Tryouts are starting for the Combat Divers Qualification Course (CDQC) and today they had an informational meeting. Femals aren't allowed to go to the school, but my Buckner 2 squad leader went through it this past summer. When I heard tryouts annoucnced over the poop deck a few days ago I for some reason thought that it would be something Erich would do. Today I found out that I was right because as I was coming back from dinner he was going to the meeting and when he saw me he shouted hi and waved.

At lunch the First Captian announced the death of another '02 grad. He didn't say how he died or anything, just that he was in F2 last year. That's already the second death from that class since they've graduated. It's really sad. The first person died while he was duing a land navigation for the ranger school train up course.

Yippee! SAMI on Saturday. That's what I love to do on saturday mornings. Get up early, get all dressed up in white over grey, stand at parade rest for 2 hours and have people come in my room and inspect everything little thing while checking for dust using a white glove. I bet there's still people out there who think they have an invasion of privacy case on their hands if their parents even peek into their rooms once in awhile. Everything here is a privalige, as a I learned last year. That includes eating, sleeping, talking, phone, computer, clothes, ect.

Thank you for tuning in to today's session of Yearling Bitterness Development Time (YBDT). This has been a presentation of BOHICA entertainment.

*BOHICA stands for Bend Over Here It Comes Again. A favorite motto of many a people during Buckner.*

Tomorrow looks like a crappy day. Das ist poopy.

YAY!:) talked to matt on the phone tonight, but was kinda multi-tasking at the same time and everything that I thought of to tell him I realized that I had written down in here. oh well.

me no want to do homework. philosophy seems very dry right now. All were doing is analyzing arguments.

I am a real rebel here. I'm sitting at my desk watching Gilmore Girls while wearing a tank top, fake regulation shorts, Birkenstocks, and a green face masque. I don't think I have anything on that's actually issued or allowed and it feels great, as long as I don't get caught.

Tomorrow morning we have a TA-50 layout for some reason and so I just went down to the trunkroom to get all of my TA-50. I have most of it in my ruck sack except for my kevlar helmet and bed roll. While I was waiting for the elevator I was wearing the rucksack and leaning up against the wall. I guess I leaned back a little too far and the extra weight threw me off balance and I ended up sliding/falling down the wall until I was almost flat on my back. The rucksack prevented me from falling all the way so I was in a semi sitting/lying postition. It was rather funny, but I was really glad that no one was in the hallway right then to see it happen.

Today I finaly checked my mail after having my Mom remind me for at least a week to do it. Last time I checked my mail, which was probably 3 weeks ago, all I had was 2 bills and an advertisement for Shades Pizza. This time, however, the result was much better. I had letter from my Mom, my Grandma, Mrs. Newton, and Matt :) (sidenote: Alyson just walked in and burst out laughing when she saw my green face). Back to my mail. I also got the new Reader's Digest, a piece of mail addressed to Charlie Haltiwager with my PO Box address, and I found out my Dad had given me a subscription to Guideposts. It was like Christmas in September. Matt's letter was awesome. He said that he was at Elk Lake when he wrote it. That's so weird because that's where my whole extended family, except me of course, was on vacation this summer around the 4th of July.

Coach Hall had me as stroke as the varsity B boat today which was cool. I hope I stay in that position. Practice was kinda hard because we did two 20 min and one 15 min piece at 60% pressure and a goal stroke rate of 24. Last spring that would have been a breeze, but I'm rusty and out of shape and so it was pretty hard. My hands took a pretty hard beating and are already blister covered and starting to get ripped up. That didn't happen last year, but that was probably because we didn't jump right into things because everyone except Beth and I were just learning to row. I can't wait until I get back into the swing of things.

I've found that I like the techno remixs of some classical music. The pulsing beat mixed with the orchestra makes it come alive in a whole new way.

Tomorrow I have a wellness quiz and a writ (big quiz) in ecomomics and I am not properly prepared for either one and it's my own fault. Tonight instead of studying diligently I was easily distracted by this, music, friends, and all manner of other things. Tomorrow I'll have to go in and do my best knowing that next time I should buckle down and do my work.

Okay, this song I'm listening to is listed as techno, but it is definetly only opera. Somebody messed up.

Learn from history and past mistakes. Both yours and other peoples.

Homework and I are not agreeing. I really need to do it, but I can't seem to concentrate. The room seems unusualy noisy and distracting. Going to the library to study would be a good idea, but I don't think I'll be able to convince my body to get up and move that far.

This evening Ez came over and we ended up argueing over how carmel was pronounced. She says caramel and I say carmel. It was the stupidest thing, but we were both having fun making fun of each other and laughing about it. Just now she called me to tell me about how Isaac (the guy she likes) IM'd her today and then called her :)

Find something to smile about every day. Love God, love your family, and don't give a damn what anybody else thinks. Remember to have fun. Stop everything and take a every so often. Put everything into perspective and your problems seem a lot smaller and sometimes even stupid compared to what some people face. Make someone feel special brighten up your own day. You are not the center of the universe. Try something new once in a while. Dare to step out and make a fool of yourself. Expand your horizons. Don't be afraid of love or loss. Success is a long journey, failure is only a brief moment. Don't compare yourself to others, everybody's different. Find out who you are and be yourself. Be a servant to others. Never compramise who you are, what your morals are, or what you believe. One moment of happiness is not worth a lifetime of pain. Have a goal and work to achieve it. Reward yourself. Pray. Showing emotion is healthy and good for you. Find your niche. You are your own best friend and worst enemy. Life is an adventure, grab it by the balls.

I'm thinking about changing this blog somehow, but I'm not sure what I want to do yet. Right now I feel like I'm whining and complaining on it all the time and I want to change that. Listening to someone moan about their life all the time is not fun. I don't have a lot of time to spend on any changes, but if anyone has any suggestions let me know.

The BBQ yesterday went pretty well. My family started showing up around 2pm and Steph came by around 2:30. I played with my cousins all afternoon outside blowing bubbles, tossing around footballs, and playing with the dogs. Betsy took Steph and I to Dominoes Farms Petting Farm to visit the rabbits and see the new babies. They're Flemish Giants and the grown ones are huge, but the babies are really tiny still. The goats were really cute and there were a few kids (young goats) roaming around that we got to pet. Mark came by around 8 just as all of my family was leaving. We sat around and talked and then Liz came by around 11pm. It was nice to see all of them and talk, but I was getting really tired and almost falling asleep around midnight.

Today I wore my uniform to Church because my parents wanted me too. I could have said no, but they love it when I wear it and I wanted to make them happy. Looking back on it I shoudl have just said no because I really felt uncomfertable wearing it today. It was very embarresing at Church because for some reason I just broke down and started crying. I think it was because of pms, Jon dying and never getting a change to properly grieve and have closure, feeling like everybody was staring at me because I was in uniform, and feeling very unfeminine. It sounds weird, but I put on the uniform and it's like I have to be this certain person who never shows emotion, who no guy will look at and see as beautiful, and like I intimidate people. Then to make matters worse I was crying in uniform which made me feel like I was disgracing the uniform and losing the respect of the people there.

I want to be a female. I don't want to scare guys, I don't want them to tell me that I'm stronger than them or have bigger muscles then them. I to be seen as a beautiful, intelligent, nice person who can laugh, cry, dress up, dress down, and is attractive.

After Church Matt and I went out to lunch. We got subs from Jimmy Johns and then ended up going to a park, found a bench, ate our subs and talked.

When I got home Heidi took me to her new house to show me it. It's a pretty nice place.

Last night around 11pm Misha called me and asked if I wanted to do something today and so we deicided to go see a movie. He picked me up around 4pm and we went and saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It's a hillarious movie. I'd definetly recommend it. I thougt that it was really cool that even though we're just friends he still paid for the tickets. After the movie Misha and I drove downtown and walked around campus for a while while we talked. I asked him all these questions about what going to UM was like and he showed me all these different buildings and beautiful places. After a while we went to Starbucks and I bought a carmel frappacino. It's really bad for you, but it tastes great and I love it. Hanging out with Misha was a lot of fun. I hope that we can do it again sometime.

The truth hurts. I was just reading porcha's blog and she was talking about her life at college and I realized how different mine is from most colleges. In high school most people get up around 6am or a little earlier, but once you get into college 7am becomes the middle of the night for a lot of people. To me that's sleeping in. My life is still structured a lot like high school, only more strict. So much for going away to college and going wild and partying. We have milk drink contests for fun. That's not normal I tell you. Okay, I'm moaning and complaing and feeling sorry for myself so I'll stop now.

People coming over soon. Fun. I have shorter hair now. Go UM football!!!!!

YAY!!! I'm home :) Life is good. I got on an earlier flight and I got in around 8pm. On the bus to the airport Chris Bess, the class president, was sitting next to me and we were both sleeping for most of the time, but every so often he would either fall over on me or would suddenly flail his arm out and hit me on accident. It was pretty funny. Once we both woke up we started talking and ended up hanging out together until we had gotten our tickets and had to go to our respective gates. I was glad that he was there because La Guardia was a new airport for me and he knew where he was going so I just stuck with him because we both were both flying American.

It was great to walk into my house, which looks really different on the outside, and see Berry and have her all excited to see me. I missed her so much. Just now she came over to me and so I got down and was petting her for awhile and didn't want to stop, except that I wanted to turn on some music. Dogs are the best. I'm going to have one sometime when I get my own place and more time. I'm definetly a dog person. That and a guinea pig person.

My Grandma organized a get together for the cousins on my Mom's side of the family tonight. I went over to her house around 9pm and hung out with my extended family. Most of them I haven't seen in almost a year or more so it was nice to catch up with them. Tomorrow I'll get to see even more family and friends when they come over for the BBQ.

It's great to be home. I'm hoping that I can spend some quality time with my sisters. We haven't really been able to talk a whole lot this summer, especially Betsy and I. I'm also really hoping that I can hang out with Matt a little. I really enjoy just hanging out and talking to him.

This is a weekend to forget about school and try and be a normal teenager once again, except that my Dad really wanted me to bring home one of my uniforms so I can wear it to Church on Sunday. I guess it won't be too bad since I'll only have to wear it for 2 hours.

I was going to talk about how in philosophy the guy sitting next to me and I reverted back to high school behavior to make the time go by and stay awake, but that would make me think about school and I'm trying to avoid it. Maybe later.

This weekend one of my goals is to see at least one movie because I won't get to see another one for a long, long time. Too bad I don't even know what movies are out in the theaters right now. Someone help me.

This weekend is 1000th night. That means that I only have 1000 days left until graduation. YIPPEE!!!!

Once again there's a blatant example of how different West Point is from a "normal" college. Instead of having beer drinking contests we have milk drinking contests. Tonight at dinner I stuck around and witnessed my first one. It was a cow and a plebe who sit at my table along with two other plebes, and then another plebe joined in a little later, trying to see who could drink the most cartons of milk without throwing up. I think Ladner, the plebe at my table, won by drinking 12 milks before he let it spray. The cow and one other plebe each got to 11 cartons before they bent over the water jug. That is one contest I'll definetly never be involved in. It was kinda funny because there was one plebe at my table who didn't get involved in the contest and he was sitting right in the middle of the guys camly eating his dinner. For dessert he had a few pieces of cake and then took a whole cake that was on the table and tried to eat all of it by holding the plate up to his face. Of course someone watching smashed the whole thing into his face as he ate and he ended up with his face covered in frosting. A firstie made him stop midway through the cake because it looked too unprofessional and there was an officer nearby.

Today I found out I made the Varsity Crew Team :) Tomorrow for practice we're going for a run at 5:30am because most of us are leaving on pass in the afternoon. 24 hours from now I'll be long gone from this place. I hope I can get on an earlier flight home because right now I'm not supposed to get in to Detroit until 10pm.

I have a math quiz tomorrow that I really need to study for, but I'm to tired for studying to do any good right now.
Today at crew practice I pulled my 2k piece so that I wouldn't have to pull it tomorrow. I ended up getting my best time ever with a 8:00.6 minutes. I'm only 0.6 seconds away from breaking the 8 minute mark. It's so close. My goal for the end of the fall season is to be down at least to a 7:50.0. Tomorrow I find out if I actually made the varsity team. Coach Hall is going to talk to each one of us one-on-one sometime during or after practice. It's gonna be a pretty nerve racking day. I really hope that I make it, but I'll be sad if I do and some of my friends don't. Today at practice Beth, Anthea, and Annah were talking about some email that some people trying out got. They wouldn't say anything more about it, but from what gathered it wasn't a good email.

Steinbock stopped by my room around 9 this evening and asked me, more like pleaded with me to go on a run with him. I really wanted to, but physics had priority. Earlier I had to cancel going swimming with Jess because of it. My work actually paid off today and I got all the problems on the homework right plus I think I understand it. That's a first.

Tomorrow I can say that I'll be home tomorrow:) My house is going to look so different and weird to me because of all the things that have happened to it since I've been gone. My Dad is having a BBQ on Saturday and invited my Uncle Gary and family over. He said that I could invite some of my friends if I wanted to so I did. I really hope that they can come. Steph already said that she could make it. I've hardly talked to her at all in the past 10 weeks :(

Today at lunch the First Captain announced the death of a 2000 grad. He said he died in an Apache helicopter accident in Korea. I'm sure some of the firsties knew him when he was here because he was the company commander of H1 and the Brigade Information Security Officer. We had a moment of silence for him during the meal. During the Vietnam War there used to be a lot of announcements like that one because of all of the recent grads going off straight into the war. A 2nd LT lasted an average of 2 weeks in the jungle. What courage those young men must have had back then as cadets listening to those announcements knowing that in only a few months that could be their name being announced and yet they still choose to stay. The class of '01 and now the class of '02 are being shipped off to Afghanistan and every so often a report comes back of someone's heroic deed. It's an honor to say that I following in their footsteps and possibly even know some of them personally.

This afternoon the Supe gave my class his usual beginning of academic year briefing. It began with the whole "your class did great this summer, congratulations. Look at some of these exciting changes that we're making around campus, but they won't be finished untill after your class has graduated." It was the same thing last year. He did mention something new, however, and that was that they're thinking about drastically shortening intersession this year. In past years it's been the 2 weeks right after Christmas break, but this year they're thinkng about moving the majority of the classes that we recieve during that time and intergrating them into the normal academic year scheduale during Deans of Comm's hours. Someone asked him what the plans were for all the extra days if that did happend and he had two answers. The first was adding more days onto the academic year and that recieved a lot of boo'ing. The other answer got him a long standing ovation because he jokingly suggested a 3 week spring break. That would be awesome, but would never happen. Getting more vacation time here is like pulling a hippo's teeth. This year they actually cut down the number of passes and made it a lot harder to earn an extra pass. I only have 2 this semester and am using one of them this weekend.

"Sorry, the owner of this blog has banned your ip address from posting comments." How did I manage to ban myself? It's rather annoying. Please, someone tell me how to fix this so I can comment in my own comments section.

I've changed my mind about naming my computer Alfred Moxley Higginsworth III. It's more of a name for a teddy bear or something, but since Edgar already has a name I'll have to wait untill I get a new one, if I ever do. I've always loved stuffed animals, but was never very fond of actually sleeping with them untill high school. Now Edgar goes almost everywhere with me when I have to spend the night. Kinda odd don't you think?

I hate CCQ... I hate CCQ...I hate CCQ...do you? It's over for today!!!! YEAH!!!!!!

Only 2.5 days and counting:) Today I was talking to a cow in my company and it turns out that he's from South Lyon. He asked me if I went to Pioneer or Huron and if I my parents were in the parents club and all that stuff. There's another guy in my company who's also from MI. I love Michigan. It's a great place.

I totally failed my physics quiz today and got a 20/25 on my wellness quiz. I spend hours doing the homework to no avail. It's poopy I tell you.

Life goes on. I got a 100% on my first math quiz which I'm happy about. It's good to start the year out on the right foot. Tomorrow I have a physics and wellness quiz so I have to get someone to cover the Q for me while I take them.

Today at practice a few of us weren't in boats to go out on the water and so Coach Hall had Jess lead an excersize thing with these step machines and weights. He told us to do 2 sets of them, but instead we ended up doing 4. It was a good workout.

Jess went swimming tonight and asked if anyone wanted to come and I wanted to, but Annah told me that I shouldn't because that would be too much too fast. Today I've felt better than I've felt in about a week. I'm almost forgetting to take my medicine. In high school and before being sick was different because I could at least stay home from school and rest if I really needed to, but that's not possible here. I don't get to slow down and take at easy so it takes longer to recover. Little illnesses become big annoyances, but you still have to try and carry on as normal. I'm glad that I think I'm almost better.

My computer is now named Alfred Moxley Higginsworth III. I have no clue why I thought of that name last night and today I decided it should be the name of my computer. It's a very odd one. I like the ring that the III adds to it. It sounds like an old-money name. I would feel sorry for anyone was actually name that.

This evening Leah and I went to Grant for some Gatorade, but they didn't have any so we bought some coffee drink thingys. Mine was, um, interesting. It has helped me stay awake however and came in a cool glass jug-type bottle.

I organized a study group for physics with a few of the guys in my company who are in my class. We met in Jason's room at 9 and did our Web Assign homework and helped each other out. Unfortuantly none of us could figure out the correct answer to the first problem.

Tomorrow I face a day of CCQ. Oh joy.

Last night after the accountablity formation Steinbock, my PSG, stopped by my room to tell me that this week Bowlby is the minutes CIC. I was very lucky last year and never had that position. As his team leader I get in trouble if minutes are screwed up, so it's not like it's a whole lot better this year not having it but having my plebe have it. Minutes this morning went fairly well except one clock wasn't covered. Hopefully that'll be fixed at lunch. I'm more nervous about lunch minutes because everyone is coming back from class and last year it was really hard to round up the people who were supposed to call. We'll see how it goes.

Right as minutes started Eddie came rushing over to the CCQ desk because the 1st SGT had just told him that he was on the Q today and he was almost a 1/2 hour late. He's been on it a lot. I brought him back a plate of food from breakfast because I didn't know if he'd had time to tell anyone that he was on the Q and to bring him back food. As it turns out he'd told Allyson to bring him back something and she did. I felt rather stupid bringing him another plate, but at least he won't go hungry.

testing. 1..2...3...testing. Does it work? Please tell me it works. Mr Nice Man, can I have a cookie?

Okay, that last sentence was a bit random, but hey I'm tired. I'm allowed to be random. So poo on you. HAH!

ssssSSSleep. Must go to bed. Now! and so should you Alfred Moxley Higginsworth III.

And life keeps getting weirder. A man in a ski mask wearing gym-a just knocked on the door, ran into the room, and then proceeded to spray my roommate, Tara, with vanilla air freshener. Okay, so it was some guy named Tucker.I don't think I know him, but Tara does. Right before the incident someone out in the hall someone had sprayed her 4 times with cologn and she smelled like a 12 year-old guy going to his first dance. It was rather funny.

Yay! Matt's back. I told Ez many times today that I wasn't going to call him because he was probably really busy having just gotten back and starting school soon, but, well, I ended up calling him. It was really great to talk to him again.

This morning I was walking to Church and feeling sorry for myself because I was still somewhat sick and all that crap. Then, I looked up and realized what a beautiful morning it was and I realized that I was feeling sorry for myself and life was going pretty well. The clouds this morning were spectacular, especially when mixed with the view I had. I was on a hill overlooking the Hudson River surrounded by huge hills. The clouds were really low and on the right side of the river they completley covered the top of the hill, but on the left they seemed to be hiding behind it with wisps hanging over the top. The sky was the perfect blue color and the air held the begining of the fall crispness in it. I wish that I could describe the whole scene better because it was awesome. I love walking to Church because it's so beautiful here and it's a very peaceful and enjoyable walk.

The Gospel lesson, childrens sermon, and sermon were all about having a firm foundation. It reminded me of my favorite hymn, actually it's probably the only hymn that I really like, has a line that is "On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand." When I was little would ask my mom to sing the Sinking Sand song and liked it because sinking sand was fasinating yet scary to me. Now that I'm a little older I realize what the hymn is actually saying and like it even more. All throughout the service I searched throught the LBW to try and find it, but I didn't because I couldn't remember the title. When I was home over summer we sung it in Church the first Sunday that I was there. My whole family knows I like it and so everytime they see it and we start singing it they all look over at me, smile, and nudge me with their elbows.

"A minor conjunctivitis frequently accompanies a viral cold, triggering the well-known symptoms and lasting only a few days."
-Take Care of Yourself by Donal M. Vickery and James F. Fries

I hope that's what this is and it'll be gone by tomorrow.

Right now I am seriously pissed because I don't want to have to go to sick call again tomorrow morning, possibly have to have another profile, and possibly be late for 1st hour again. What makes me even more angry is that there isn't a single thing that I can do about the way my eye is looking/acting. It still looks similar to pink-eye. I'm not supposed to get sick twice in a row, especially here. Last year I didn't go to sick call at all. This isn't supposed to be happening!

I'm really on a roll here. This morning I woke up and my left eye was all goopy and red. It's stayed red throughout the day and when I go to sleep it goops up again. Why can't I just stay healthy? I really hope it's not pink eye or anything. On the bright side, my strep throat seems to be getting a lot better.

This afternoon a few of my friends and I went over to the Hanlon's on OPPs, meaning that we could go in civiies:) We sat around watching tv and then started watching Harry Potter. I was really tired and fell asleep about 15 min into it. 2 hours later I woke up when Tia came and sat on me. Leah was asleep on the flloor and most of the other people had already left, but Tia and Annah had come over. Around 4:30 we stared watching the movie Dragonfly while Tia and Amy made dinner and brownies. Annah, Leah, and I were all on the couch and during any semi-scary part we would all huddle together and Annah would grab our hands and sqeeze them as hard as she could. Tia would come in and laugh at us.

I missed most of the ring weekend banquet watching because I was at the Hanlon's house, but Mrs. Hanlon drove Leah, Jodi and I back around 9pm and there were some people still dressed up and leaving with their dates. We saw a firstie girl in her india whites with a civilian guy in a suit and all thought that was the coolest thing. I love seeing cadet girls with civilian guys because it gets old only seeing civilian girls all dressed up hanging on the arms of all the guys here. Tonight made me look forward to YYW and seeing everybody look real nice.

I just found an Always pad on my bed with a note underneath it saying "From the CCQ w/ love." My roommate has one on her bed too. I wonder who's on the Q right now. Probably Eddie. He picked up both a male and a female campus trial pack up from outside the bookstore in Thayer today to get all of the medication from them. The female ones had those in it and I guess he thought it'd be funny to go around and stick them on our beds. Actually, it is rather funny. That just goes to show how deprived of entertainment and fun we are here.

I really should be in bed right now. Both Beth, Annah, and my Mom and Dad have told me that I need to go to bed. I talked to my parents on the phone tonight and mentioned that I'd rowed today. My Dad procceded to tell me rather sternly that I should not have done that and this weekend I need to stay in bed, rest as much as possible, and avoid all physical activity untill I'm completley better. It didn't help that while I was on the phone with them I was coughing up a storm. I agree with him, but that doesn't mean that I'll actually follow the advice completly. I don't think it's possible for me to just lie in bed and do nothing. I'd feel so lazy and like I hadn't accomplished anything. My throat hurts a little more today and right now it feels like I have a cold, but I still want to be active and going to bed isn't that appealing. Well, it is, but it isn't. I'm sure that practice today didn't help my condition at all because I was completly worn out after it even though it wasn't hard at all. There's a battle going on between what I know I should do and what I want to do. I can be rather stubborn if I want to.

I really like the blend Mettalica and the San Fransico Symphony Orchestra. Together they produce and awesome combination of music that fires me up. Last year Erich introduced me to Mettalica with Whiskey in a Bottle. That was my favorite song by them, but I think that was just because it was the one Erich sent me. On Blubbster I was searching for more music by them and eventually came across Hero of the Day done by Mettalica with the San Fransisco Symphony Orchestra and really liked it. Today I found a few more songs done by them. It's awesome.

Yes! It's the weekend. I love weekends. What makes everything even better is that next week at this time I'll either already be home or I'll be on my way home. My plane leaves at 8pm, but I'm hoping that I can get on standby for and earlier flight.

Today at crew practice we went out on the water. Coach Hall had me as stroke of the Eagle even though I haven't done a lot of the practices this week cuz I've been sick. I was worried at first because this afternoon I was feeling a little worse and didnt' have much energy, but once we got out on the water and started rowing I got into the groove of things and it felt great. When I'm rowing, especially when I'm stroke, it's almost like I'm connected to the boat. I can see what my oar is doing even though I can't physically see it. I know how it reacts to the things I do with it and it becomes like a part of my body. My mind corrects me and tells me what I'm doing wrong and what I need to concentrate on and so I correct it. Being out on the water is great because all the other pressures and stress are forgotten about. I don't think about all of the homework that I need to do, or that I have all these other things that need to get done. The only things on my mind are how hard I'm pulling, my technique, and how beautiful everything is around me. Of course I only notice the beauty when I we stop to turn around because the rest of the time I'm staring straight ahead at the coxswain even though in my minds I I'm looking at my oar.

I think the fall is my favorite season, and not just because my birthday is in the fall. Football afternoons, cool, crisp evening walks with a close friend, the majestic trees as they change color, and the special smell in the air. When I was younger I loved football Saturdays, but not becuase I liked to watch the game. While my parents were inside watching the UM game I'd be outside raking leaves into a huge pile, sometimes as tall as me, under the swing set. I'd then climb from the tree house onto the top of the swing set and jump into the pile. I'd race around the yard playing with a football and all other manner of toys and sports equipment. Freshman year of high school I started going to Mission Christ and during the fellowship time Frank and I would go on long walks through the neighborhood talking about anything and everything. That was the highlight of my week freshman year. Last year in the fall was Plebe Parent Weekend and my parents, Heidi, and Matt came up for it. That was one of the best, if not the best, thing 1st semester. The only thing that would have made it even better would be if Betsy had come too, because then all of the people who I care about the most in my life would have been here.

My Mom sent me a package from home a few days ago because I wanted my teddy bear. I left him at home over summer because he'd get really dirty at Buckner. She dressed him in pants and a yellow t-shirt that she made that says "USMA Fired up C-4 Go Cowboys" on the front and has a picture of a cowboy hat. On the back it has "Class of 2005" written on it. I love it. She also sent me cookies, gummi bears, my water bottle, vitamin C drops, noise makers, and a letter with some farside cartoons. My parents are wonderful. Annah thinks so too.

Gotta love feeling like a plebe. This morning after Physics I went to get a new military ID because mine was falling apart and every time I had to show it to someone they threatened to take it away from me. The last time I was at the office that you get them was in Beast, but for some reason people expect me to remember where it is. They say " do you remember where you went in Beast. It's that place." Trying to remember where everything is was a top priority of mine at that time. Especially since I could only look straight forward and was scared to death of being hazed. Okay, so I had no clue where it was and I ended up wandering around the 4th floor of Washington Hall looking for any tiny thing that looked familiar. They were nice enough to put it right at the beginning of a hallway and so I eventually found it and got my new ID. It was then that I faced the big challenge -- getting out. Washington Hall connects to Mac Long, which is the building I live in and I didn't want to have to walk down 4 flights of stairs only to have to walk up 6 more. I figured that since I've managed to find the right exit before that I could do it again. Needless to say, I ended up walking down many a wrong hallway and having to backtrack. I ended up running into my spanish teacher, CPT Bracero, eventually and he was kind enough to lead me all the way to my exit. It was a very humbling experiance.

The medication they have me on is working really well, as long as I don't go too long without it. I'm taking 1 pennacillin 3 X day, 2-3 tylenol every 4-6 hours, 1-2 sudafed every 6 hours, and then these awesome throat lasengeze that numb my tounge and throat a little. Even with all of that I my throat is still a little soar and I'm still congested, but it's a ton better than I felt Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. Coach won't let me row untill next week. I hope this doesn't affect my chance of making the team.

This weekend is Ring Weekend for the Firsties. This afternoon they get their rings and then tomorrow there's the banquet and the dance. My room has a view of North Area and so I'll get to see all of them with their fancy cars and beuatifully/handsomely dressed dates.

And my life just keeps on getting better. I have strep throat. There is the possibility, however, that if it doesn't get better by Monday that it's Mono. For once I'm praying for strep.

I actually finished all of my homework and it only took me 7 focused hours today. Augh! Okay, so I did it more indepth than usual, but I had to say screw it to the vocab words for physics because I didn't want to spend another 45 min on those.

My classes: physics, calc II, economics, spanish, philosophy, and wellness.

Funny thing of the day: I was in the bathroom in Thayer right before 4th hour and was about to leave when the door opened. I'm pretty sure I saw Erich's head pop inside and then heard him in a very embarrassed voice say "oops! wrong bathroom." It was pretty funny, especially since when I went in there I double checked the name on the door to make sure that wouldn't happen to me.

Home in less then 2 weeks! YAY!!! Too bad Betsy and Heidi won't be home :( That made me really sad when I found out. I miss them.

Tryouts for varsity Crew are going on right now. There are only 20 slots and Coach Hall isn't cutting any of the Firsties. I'm pretty nervous. So is the rest of the team. There are probably 25-29 people trying out. Tomorrow I have to row a 2k and then on Thursday I have to row a 6k. Those scare me because last year I didn't have a lot of power and never broke 8 min on the erg.

Crap! I have to make Bowlby send up another RnT for the Protestant Plebe Retreat because this year they don't want team leaders on the sheet, but they didn't tell us that. It's gonna be the third one I've made him do. I also have to find time to go down and get him money for the laundry he sent out during beast and that the cleaning service lost. I also need to come up with an FCDT plan for the next few weeks for us.

Time to sleep :) Good night, Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite.

Sometimes I wonder how good of friends my friends think we are. There are a few friends that I am really close to, but I wonder how close they think we are in their opinion. I can tell almost anything to them, but do they feel like they can tell anything to me? I hold them in really high esteem and love hanging out with them. Do they feel the same way? Am I one of their best friends? So many questions.

lalalaallalalalallalalalallalalalallalalallalalalalalallalalalalalallalalalallalalalalalalalla KA BOOM!!!!!
And it's all over now. Back to work.

OAR is a really cool band!

The whole yearling class has no access to email right now. Everyone else's is fine, but ours does not work. It really sucks because classes start tomorrow and the majority of us can not get to the emails from our professors telling us the assignments and giving us the bio sheets to fill out. Tomorrow will be interesting.

I was talking to Dan online today and he said that Matt got back today. I have no clue if that's true, but I hope it is. I miss him. Hopefully he had a great time this summer.

Today at dinner I ran into Erich and so I sat with him and a few of his friends. He said he'd be at Church, but he wasn't. It was the first time that I didn't totally miss him and wish he was there. Tonight I IM'd him a few times to find out some info about classes, but didn't talk anymore after that. I sat with Brian Olsen in Church and we had a good time. He read the first lesson and I read the second. He's and interesting guy.

It's still really hot here and the 6th floor is even hotter. I can't wait for it to cool off.

Life is stressful. I'm afriad that soon I just blow up at a plebe from some stupid reason. That's one of the things that I really want to avoid -- sudden mood swings. I hate leaders like that.

Crew tryouts start tomorrow:) I'm a little scared. What if I don't make varsity? Wait, I shouldn't worry because worrying is pointless. I'll just go and do my best. Any time I start to worry I think of Matt telling me I worry to much and to stop worrying do I do stop. See, I'm working on it.

I visited Jaz today and ended up in A2. I kinda miss the company, but that's probably because I'm still getting acclimated to this one. We'll see how it is at the end of this year.

Time for sleep. YAY!!!!!!

This week has kept me so busy that I haven't had time to think about guys at all. Amazing isn't it? It's probably a really good thing because I was going crazy over them during Buckner. I think I missunderstand or just plain miss a lot of the signals that they send, if they actually do send any. I am extremly niave.

I am so tired. There is a SAMI tomorrow after the acceptance day parade. It was supossed to be before the parade, but since there was a huge thunderstorm so drill was canceled. Now we have to get up for a 0545 formation tomorrow morning for drill. Last night we had to get up at 0300 for a piss test and then get up again at 0450 for the Brigade run. Yea for 4 hours of sleep. Bleagh. The only thing I'm looking forward to is going to Coach Hanlon's tomorrow to hang out, eat food, watch movies, and relax with my friends. It's gonna be great.

RIght now I'm smelly, sweaty, sticky, and all manor of other unpleasent things. Being in 4th reg for parades sucks! I sure hope that crew autho's are a go again.

The new commedant is really big on PT. He loves it so much that he's us do a Brigade run tomorrow. All 4000 cadets are going to get up and go for a run down to Thayer Gate at 5:30am tomorrow morning. In addition to that my company is having a piss test probably right before that. Please, shoot me now. By the time my company starts running the first company will probably already be almost back. Augh! I need sleep, my plebe needs sleep, the corps needs sleep. A run like that in a week like this is not condusive to the motivation or phyisical prowness of the cadets here.

Well, I'm off to go see if my plebe needs help setting up his computer.

Just shoot me now. Please. Some how I managed to catch a cold. My room is like a sauna because I live on the sixth floor and it's 100 degree's outside during the day. Yesterday my NC and I managed to get to the c-store and wait in line for over an hour just to pay. Then we went to pick up his M14, but didn't have his card so we had to come back in the afternoon. After lunch we went down to book issue, but the line was really long, it was going to close in 2 hours, and we had a bunch of other stuff to do so we left. We went to the health clinic to pick up his computer, then to Thayer so I could show him some of his classrooms and also pick up his printer. On our way back to the barracks we stopped and got his M14. There was about a 1/2 hour of no running around and then the ccq came by and said that we all had to go down for static drill. That lasted for 45 min. When we got back I started to search for some laundry he had sent out during beast and never gotten back. That meant going down to the basement of Mac, back up to the 6th floor, back down again, and then over to CGR. I didn't find it. It was dinner time after that and after dinner there was a regimental briefing in Robinson. I let him sit with his friends but that meant that he had to walk back on his own. While I was walking back I was really nervous about that because I was afriad he'd get lost or get stopped and hazed by somebody. Everything turned out fine. There were duties after the briefing, but I mostly stayed in my room because most of the cows and firsties were gone and I didn't feel like being a haze. It was great when I finally got to take a shower around 10pm because I was so sweaty and smelly. It is so hot here that everyone breaks out in a sweat even when they're sitting doing nothing at all. Now I'm onto another day of running around. My main focus is getting his books and computer. I hope that happens.

Jason took all of the New Cadets that needed to go to sick call there this morning at 6:00am. Bowlby had to go because he has a rather large and painful blister on his foot. Right now it's 8:20 and their still not back. It makes me wonder how the New Cadets were treated during beast this year. I hope that he's okay, but I expect that he'll be on at least soft shoe profile for the next little while. Today we have a busy day of getting his books, drawing his M14, and going to the C-store. On a normal day those things would all together take only 1-2 hours, but since all of the New Cadets have to do them today the lines are horrendous. It doesn't help that I have no clue when he'll be back from sick call and I can't really start on any of the things without him. I'm also worrried that he won't get breakfast. They usually have some sort of breakfast for normal sick call, but since he went to the one at Arvin Gym for blisters I don't know if he'll get it. I brought back a few pieces of fruit from breakfast and so if all else fails he can have those and a few of my cliff bars.

One standard that I want to hold myself to this year is to not ask more of my plebe than I ask of myself. If their shoes have to be shiny, mine must be shinier. If I want them to recite some piece of knowledge than I must know it perfectly myself. It's easy to say "hey, they're a plebe and I'm not. I don't have to do that." But a good leader doesn't do that. A good leader upholds the standard in their subordinates and themselves. It's hard to know how much I can ask of them, but I think it'll be a good handrail for me to say that if I expect them to do something I must also do it, or have the ability to do it. Hopefully my plebe won't be too ate up because I don't want to be a haze. I want to lead by example. Last year I think Schwetz was an awesome team leader them more I think about it. I've learned a lot from him of how to be a good team leader and am trying to do some of the things he did. For example, for now at least Bowlby has to report everytime I knock on the door because it's good practice and sets the tone for the relationship. After I come in the room, however, I allow him and his roommate to relax and continue on with what they were doing. In a few hours I wont' have him report to me anymore when I come in the room because it takes way to much time and I have to come to his room really often to tell him stuff.

Now I have to go tell my plebe a frago about min. gotta love it.

Today I got my plebe - New Cadet Bowlby. I feel as though I've given birth and am now raising a child. If he needs to go somewhere I have to go with him. While he's setting up his room I have to check up on him every 15 minutes. When he screws up I have to correct him. Thankfully, unless he really screws up I don't have to haze him. I'm responsible for his every action, or lack there of. It's so weird to walk into his room and have him and his roommate report and greet me at parade rest. It was really weird when we went to turn in his rifle for me to walk down the row of plebes who were all shouting "Beat Holy Cross Corporal" and then realize that they weren't greeting someone behind me, they were greeting me. I was about halfway through the line when I finaly realized that.

It's great being on the other side of things finaly, but it's a lot more work. Right now I have a hard time making myself want to correct a plebe who's greeted incorrectly or something. They all look so scared and timid. I was just like that last year. This year I have to exude self-confidence and take charge. It's hard.

It's now time to go check up on him again.

I have so much to say and no time to spend saying it. Right now I really should be in bed because I've been up since 4:30 this morning and have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow. It's gonna be a very busy week, but at least I'm not a new cadet. I'm really looking forward to the experiance of being a leader. My guess is that I'll mature a lot.

Why is this not publishing my stuff?

My room is a pit right now. My roommates and I are still in the process of unpacking and so everything, especially my stuff, is thrown all over the place. It has to look perfect by tomorrow morning. HAH! I also have to shine my boots really well and iron and starch my BDU's. It's gonna be a long night. At least I get my plebe tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to being a team leader. It's gonna be a ton of work, but the leadership experince is gonna be awesome. All summer my chain of command has told us to think of the first words we're gonna say to them. Mine are going to be "follow me." It has meaning on more than one level.

Oops. gotta go. formation time.

I'm back at school after 7 weeks of Camp Buckner. Later when I have more time I'll talk about all the cool stuff and some of the not so cool stuff that I did there. This morning we had to get up at 4:30am to finish up packing our stuff. Then we did a 7 mile run back to West Point starting at 7:03am. We got there at 8:15am and I proccedded to get all of my crap that I had loaded into my parents van. In the process I forgot to eat breakfast and didn't drink enough water and so by lunch I felt like crap. You try running 7 miles and then lugging up 4 bags huge bags, a full ruck sack, 2 heavy foot lockers, and a computer and printer to the sixth floor of a building. It sucks! Tomorrow I get my plebe so I have to be all moved in today. I'm about to start unpacking some more and go pick up my M14. I hate that weapon. It's a torture device used in parades. Oh well. That's life. Now I must get back to work. Blah.

One last thing. WASSUP!

I really should be in bed right now because I have to get up in a few short hours in order to be out the door at 3:25am and on my way back to West Point and Camp Buckner for the summer. It's been great being home and seeing my family and friends, relaxing, sleeping in, going to movies, and forgetting about the pressures of school. The worst part of being home is the day before I leave. The pit in my stomach threatens to consume my whole body and I feel very depressed the whole today. Today was no different, but a few things made it remarkably better.

The first was Matt calling me and us going out to lunch. He has the remarkable ability of cheering me up no matter what without even knowing it or trying. This can be good, but also kinda of annoying, in a good way, when I want to call him and wallow in my sorrow and depression and can't because I feel better. It was great to just sit and talk to him for a while and forget about the pit in my stomach. I'm gonna miss him.

Steph and I then went kayaking on the Huron River. It was really hot out and so we splashed eachother didn't care about all the polution in the water. I wouldn't be suprised if we each grow and extra eye or ear in the next month.

Besty came over for dinner and my dad grilled some chicken which tasted very good. It was enjoyable to have the whole family sitting at the table talking and laughing one last time before I leave. My Grandma stopped by for a few minutes to say goodbye to me and I was able to solve the mystery of how to lock the doors to her new car from the inside. You have to press the lock button twice. Later in the eveing the whole family watched my Dad set off some fireworks my Mom had bought at the store today. It reminded me of when I was little and we used to do that around the 4th of July. Good stuff.

I am suprised at the amount of stuff I have to take back with me. I don't know how I'm going to fit all of it into my wall locker at Buckner. Molly is probably going to laugh at me tomorrow when I show up at her house tomorrow morning with 3 huge bags. Becki stopped by tonight and we talked while I finished packing. We were supposed to hang out today but unfortunatly that didn't happen. I'm glad that she came over tonight.

I'm looking forward to seeing Jasmin, Ez, Erich, and everybody else again. This evening I made little loaves of banana bread to take back with me and give to Jasmin. I hope she likes them.

Now I must go and begin my 6-7 week hiatus from this and the computer all together. Since I won't have this to use to vent and transcribe my thoughts on I'm planning on taking up letter writing again. Gotta love the old pen and paper.

Talk to you later. Good night.

Ceder Point was fun, especially because I didn't have to pay for it. I started out by hanging out with Anna, James, Mike, Dan, and Greg and we went on the Power Tower, Wicked Twister, and Gemini before lunch. The Wicked Twister was a lot better than I thought it would be. Definetly a good ride. After lunch Anna, Aaron, and Mr. Hart and I went on the Raptor, Magnum and Gemini. Mr Hart left us when we went on the Gemini and after that we went on the Millenium Force. That was the longest line of the day at 1.5-2 hours. All the other lines were under 45 min. It was almost time to meet up again with the group after the Millenium Force, but we had a little time to waste so we rode the carasoul twice. Anna and I were going to take Beth and her friend on the Raptor after dinner but there was some miscommunication and Anna and I ended up riding it alone. The lines were short, the coasters were fun, and the weather was great. It was a good day to be at Ceder Point. I still kinda feel like I'm on a roller coaster even though I'm sitting at the computer typing. It's kinda cool.

This is my last full night at home :( Friday I have to be at Molly's house at 4am. Summer went by so fast! Tomorrow I have a ton o' crap to do like working out, shopping, laundry, and packing. I'm also hoping to go kyakying with Steph, hang out with Matt, and do something with Becki. Crap. If only I could slow down time. I managed to do most of the things that I wanted to do this summer while I was home which is good, but I'm not ready to leave and go back to West Point. I know I was complaining earlier about how I miss West Point, and I do miss my friends, but I also like my freedom. I really shouldn't complain about haveing to go back. This is the life I choose and now I have to deal with it. This is one of the many sacrifices. But I'm not ready to say goodbye to everyone. I hate that part. The final hug that I wish would last for forever but never does makes me want to cry. In fact, sometimes I do cry when I think about having to say good bye to the people who are the specialist to me. Or should that be most special. hmmm... I hate the part where I have to leave.

There is a delicate art to making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Growing up I learned this art from watching my mom make them for my sisters and I and then trying to perfect it later on in life when I made my own sandwichs. It is important to put peanut butter on both slices of bread in order to prevent the jelly from soaking through a slice and making it all mushy. The peanut butter has to cover the whole slice evenly and the coating does not have to be very thick. The jelly goes on only once slice of bread but must also coat it evenly. You do not need goobs of peanut butter or jelly, just a smooth coating of each so that neither taste masks the other. You then carefully cover the jellied slice with the unjellied slice. The way you cut it does not appear to affect the tast, but I've found a diaginol cut across the sandwich to be more asthetically appealing than a cut down the middle. If I'm in a hurry I don't bother with cutting the sandwich. In high school I'd heard rumors of people only putting peanut butter on one side of the bread, but for the most part I dismissed them as hearsay and assumed that everyone made their sandwichs the way I did. It was therefore shocking to me to arive at West Point during Beast and to find that people were scooping huge goobs of peanut butter out of the jar and then only putting it on one slice. They would then drown the other slice in mounds of jelly and smash the two pieces together. I was appalled. Has no one taught them the art of the sandwich. My mission in life is clear. The people need to know and I will teach them!

And now on to life.

Today I was really bored and none of my friends were free so I sat around the house, played with the dogs, and watched the guys doing construction. I couldn't stare at them and admire their shirtless bodies and muscles because I've known most of them since I was little and that just seems wrong. If only my parents would hire people I didn't know. Oh well. Mark called in the afternoon and asked if I wanted to go out tonight. The lack of plans and tremendous bordem I felt prompted me to very quickly say yes. After that I proccedded to go on a 2.5 mile run. It actually wasn't that bad, but I should have jogged longer. Anyway, Mark and I went out for icecream and then drove to a park in the middle of the city and walked around a bit. We ended up at this bench and it was so cool because there wasn't a cloud in the sky, no buildings were visiable, and everywhere you looked it was just nature stuff. It was really beautiful. We sat there and talked about flying cars, life on mars, and stuff like that. Weird conversation but very enjoyable. After that we went and saw Scooby-Do the movie. It was very funny, but I think it would scare little kids too much. I think my cousins, who love Scooby-Do, should wait a few years before they see it or else they'll have nightmares. Now I'm off to bed so I can get up somewhat early and go to Ceder Point. Yippeeeeeee:)

Stupid summer jobs. All of my friends seem to have them and so no one is home during the day. Therefore I have no one to go kyaking with and I'm very bored.

The deck is being torn apart right now. I didn't know my parents were getting a new one. There's a lot of stuff I don't know.

Yesterday as I was driving to the fitness center it hit me that I am leaving on Friday. It made me real depressed which hurt my workout. Driving home I was even more depressed because I realized I'm out of shape and not ready for Buckner, I have to leave Friday and won't be back untill Labor Day or Thanksgiving, and I started to think about Erich. I don't think he likes me, we don't talk that much, I don't know him very well, and crap like that. While I was thinking about all of that and feeling worse and worse by the minute the song The Middle by Jimmy Eat World came on the radio.

hey don't write yourself off yet
it's only in your head you feel left out or looked down on
just try your best
try everything you can
and don't you worry what they tell themselves when you're away

it just takes some time
little girl, you're in the middle of the ride
everything everything will be just fine
everything everything will be all right X2

hey you know they're all the same
you know you're doing better on your own so don't buy in
live right now
just be yourself
it doesn't matter if it's good enough for someone else

it just takes some time
little girl, you're in the middle of the ride
everything everything will be just fine
everything everything will be all right X2

do your best
do everything you can
don't you worry what their bitter hearts are going to say

The lyrics seemed to apply to me a lot right then and they were just what I needed.

Today I woke up to the sound of my alarm at 9:08am and then procceded to go back to sleep. I was having a pleasent dream a little while later when it was interupted by a loud banging. At first I thought it was my dad working on the new laundry room he's putting in my parent's bedroom, but as I became more awake I realized it was coming from the roof. I guess we're having the roof redone.

I finally made it back to the fitness center today to work out. Because there's an APFT on Saturday I decided to try a practice one today. I managed 32 pushups and 52 situps in the respective two minute times. I really need to work on the situps. The 2-mile run didn't happen because I got bored on the treadmill and couldn't figure out a route to run. Pray for a thunderstorm around 5am that lasts until 7am. It will only postpone the APFT for another day, but that'll prevent one more day of PT.

My Grandma invited my family over for dinner today and Aunt Sue, Isaac and Anna were there. I became a human jungle gym for them. After dinner my dad and I headed out to Dexter to go fishing and a pond at one of my dad's coworkers new house. Frank went with us. He caught 13 or 14 fish while I only caught 6. The fish were kinda small and we of course threw them all back and overall it was fun.