I think tonight was God's way of telling met that I've studied the topic of modesty, dating, courtship, the role of women, God's design of stuff, and other related stuff enough for the moment, and that it is time to focus on something else. That is not to say that I have studied it enough at all, but only that it would soon be at the point where I focus too much on it.. Enough for now, take a break, come back later. It's a cycle. I just wish I could manage to gather all of what I've learned into one spot, perhaps in writing, for myself as well as to share with friends.

I wonder what topic will be next.

Originally the Thayer week was supposed to be over tomorrow morning, but my CS401 teacher has so kindly extended it to Friday. He somehow forgot, although he claims he mentioned it in class, to tell our class about a major paper due on Friday. We all thought it was due next semester, especually since we have a different research paper due in the class on Friday as well. Somehow the claim that he told us about it in class doesn't seem quite true, since no one, not a single one of the 18 cadets in the class, recall him mentioning anything about it being due this week. He's a LTC, I'm a CDT, what can I do but conclude I missed hearing him assign it and get it done.

The good news is that it is snowing outside and sticking to the ground. Fresh snow makes eveyrthing look better in winter.

Army lost to Navy this weekend in Philly. It was rather depressing, but we'll get them next year. My parents came for the game, and they came to the OCF banquet on Saturday after the game. I wish I had done the OCF Army Navy retreat previous years instead of waiting until this year to try it out. I really enjoyed it, although the fact that I had a lot of work hanging over my head put a damper on the weekend.

I wouldn't be suprised if my CS484 partner hates me and is cursing me right now. I think I just caused both of us to fail a project, becuase I don't understand my part of it and can't get it to work. Therefore I have nothing to show tomorrow during the presentation. Yes, I feel like a huge dirtbag.

Josh Howard, a guy in my OCF group, needs prayers right now. He was addmitted to Keller 2 days ago with a blood clot in his leg. Yesterday his situation got worse and he was moved to another hospital and is in the ICU. That's all I know.

Good Article: http://www.kevinsites.net/

It's a rainy day here.

The email servers for cadets and the server for CIS crashed last night leaving everyone with an inability to send, recieve, or read any email, as well as not finish CPRs and MD grades. It just happened that for CS484 our teacher planned on taking us over to DOIM to look at the servers over there and the set up of the network. Supposedly one of the technicians who talked to us explained the problem that occured last night, but we're all still in a state of confusion about it.

Projects due in the next few days:
Thursday - IT305 IS project
Friday - CS484 project and presentation
Monday - CS401 part of paper due to partners; IT460 paper due
Tuesday - MS401 capstone paper due

What I have almost complete so far:
IT305 IS project.

It's going to be a rough next few days, especially with Army-Navy in there taking up the whole weekend. However, after Tuesday I'll be golden. I have one TEE Saturday, which is IT305 and shouldn't be too bad. Then I don't have any TEEs until Wednesday, where I have CS484 in the afternoon. Easiest TEE schedule ever. This semester's been awesome.


Were there enough acronyms in there?
CIS -Cadet Information System (where grades and other information is stored)
DOIM - not sure what it stands for, but they are the network people
CPR - cadet performance report
MD - military development
IT - information technology
CS- computer science
MS- military science
TEE- term end exam (final exam)

I feel like I'm in a maze of phone numbers and I don't know how to get out.

Last night my ear was still hurting, and then kept me from sleeping very well during the night, so I went into sick call this morning to get it looked at. Turns out I have a rather nasty ear infection, so now I'm on motrin, ear drops, and amoxicillin. (The doctor did tell me that most ear infections are viral, not bacterial, but he still felt antibiotics were worth it in my case.) The doctor also told me to go see an ear, nose, and throat doctor due to the strange reoccurance of ear pain when I go home.

At the clinic this morning they told me to go online and make an appointment with the doctor, and also gave me two numbers I could call in order to make an appointment. I looked online and didn't find any appointment making places, so I called the numbers. The first one didn't work, and the person who answered the second one told me that I had to make an appointment through TriCare. He gave me a number to call, which I called. After some automated voices telling me to make different selections, I reached a real person who told me that I had to call someplace else, and she gave me the number. I called that number and another machine answered. It asked me to select my former TriCare region, which I had no clue about so I had to go online and figure that out. After I made the correct selection I reached a real person who proceeded to tell me that I needed a referral to make an appointment, and he gave me a name of a person who has to provide the referral, and a number for them to fax the referral to. I then tried to look up the name so that I could email her, but couldn't find it in the global address list for West Point. I decided to look up the doctor who had seen me earlier today so that I could email him and explain the situation, but he wasn't listed either.

Right now I'm wondering whether it's worth all the trouble of continuing my search of how to make an appointment. I may just say forget it and hope that since I'm driving home for Christmas, and any time from then on, I won't have any more ear trouble.

Back at school, back to the grind. The good news is that tomorrow I only have one class and it's last hour. First hour I'm meeting with Amanda for coffee at Grant.

Anyone want to trade ears? Mine work fine as long as I don't fly home to Michigan. They're still hurting. Grrr...

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's great to be home :)

For anyone going to the Joe Bear site and not finding the latest episode, it hasn't been posted yet. Last night I sent it out on the Joe Bear Distro. I'll post a message when it's online. If you are interested in being on the distro feel free to let me know. Usually the episodes are 4 or 5 MB in size.

The reaction over the new Joe Bear episode has been mixed. The guys who usually send emails saying Joe Bear is stupid, in a nice way, are the ones who like the new episode the most. However, the reaction from the girls has not been so good. They don' t like the branch that was choosen. I personally would have liked to have him branch Armor, but there's a decided lack of tanks around the barracks, and I couldn't think of any other way of depicting it.

Right now I'm feeling rather alone in my beliefs about women regarding modesty, courtship vs dating, marriage, roles of men and roles of women, and God's design for things.

I sent out a new Joe Bear episode tonight and at the bottom of the email I put Psalm 91:11. The embarrasing thing is that instead of the word "concerning" I accidently wrote "concerting."

Right now I should be studying for a WPR that I have tomorrow in IT460, Information Warfare, but I keep getting distracted. Can it be Tuesday right now instead of Sunday? That way I'd be going home tomorrow, instead of taking a test tomorrow.

Today I woke up around 8:30 even though my alarm was set to go off at 9:30. I read for a bit, and then got ready for Church. After Church Jason invited me to go out to lunch with the group, but I had a project meeting, so I turned down the invitation and ate in the mess hall instead. Right before my project meeting Dave stopped by my room and asked if I could drive him out to Buckner to get his car. He convinced me to push back the meeting by about 15 minutes, and I ended up driving him out there. My project group met at 1 for about 10 minutes and divided up the next portion of the IT305 project. Then I worked on it a bit and read while waiting for my cousing Isaac to call. He called around 2:30 to interview me for a class project. It was really cute. Then I went with Anne to the PX to try and get some subduded MI insignia, but they were still all out. Anne and I met again at 5 and walked up to the Cadet Chapel to go to Genesis. During the fellowship times we watched Veggie Tales videos. The title of the Genesis talk was "It's Not All About You." It was a really good message. After that I went and hung out in Jason and Charlie's room for a bit and talked about courtship and relationships. Now I'm back in my room half studying for a test.

I've been spending a lot of time with Jason and Charlie, and their group of friends this semester. They are both involved in a lot of the Christian activities I'm involved with, and togther we lead a weekly company Bible study on Romans. It's been awesome finding good Christian friends in the company, as well as the fact that they introduce me to other Christians that I didn't know before. Plus, since they only live two doors down, it's really easy to go over and talk to them and get a guy's perspective on stuff, or just joke around and make faces in the mirror with them.

I hear Michigan lost to Ohio State :( We'll beat them again next year.

Today marked the last home football game of my cadet career. It was cold, raining, and we lost. I don't think I'm going to miss mandatory football games very much.

This morning we had meetings with our branch reps. We talked about posting, MIOBC dates, and MI in general. Afterwords I came back to the room and read a tiny bit. I then decided to visit Jason and Charlie. They were playing Smash Brothers on Jason's computer and after a few minutes of watching that I felll asleep on their couch for about half an hour. When I woke up I went down the company BBQ, and then came back to my room and read for a bit. Then it was time to form up to march up to the stadium. As I said before, it was cold, raining, and we lost. After the game I went out to dinner with Abigail at Palisades. Now I'm here writing this and wondering why I am putting off going to bed when what I really want to do right now is go to bed. I think I shall go to bed now.

Yesterday as I was waiting at Mac Statue for Mrs. D to pick me up for our weekly Bible study a car drove around the corner and I saw a red one star license plate on the front of it. My first thought was to turn and duck inside, but not wanting to seem cowardly, and not wanting to keep Mrs D waiting when she showed up, I stayed where I was on the sidewalk. Military etiquette states that we're supposed to salute the vehicales with General's flags on them, so I saluted the car, but felt like I looked rather stupid out there all alone saluting a car. I was hoping the car would drive right on by to the Supe's house without stopping, but it of course stopped right in front of me. Not sure if my first salute had counted, I saluted again. Then the General's aid, a Major, got out of the car, so I saluted him. Finally the Brigadere General stepped out of the car, so I then saluted him. I was very relieved once they walked away and the car drove off.

Then this morning after I recieved my polio shot I decided to go to Grant to get some hot chocolate to drink. As I was walking down the sidewalk I saw the General and the Major headed my direction. Once again I hoped that either I'd be inside Grant before they passed, or that they would pass right on by and I could salute and greet and be over with the interation. Of course, it didn't work out that way. Right as I reached Grant they turned to walk up to Grant as well. I saluted and greeted, but instead of saying "Good Morning gentlemen," it came out "Good Afternoon, gentlemen." The time was 8:45 am. The general asked me if Grant was open, and I told him I thought so, and opened the door. I think I was supposed to open the door for both of them and let them pass through first, but I opened the door and the Major then held it while I walked through and then the General. There wasn't any room to move to the side to let him through first. I hope it wasn't too much of a military etiquette blunder.

I really hope that was my last encounter with him. I don't know who it was, and was too busy trying not to make a fool of myself to look at his nametape (I failed in the not looking like a fool part.) I'll be happy if Generals stay out of my vicinity for awhile.

Sunday night was branch night. I haven't posted my branch results up until now due to the fact that I couldn't access blogger on Sunday, and then I left for FL on Monday. Anyway, I got my first choice, Military Intelligence :) I may not get the post I want, but I'm happy having the branch I want.

Eric Mbog-hob, USMA class of 2004, may he rest in peace.

Currently I'm at a resort in Disney World due to a conference that is going on here. My group presented today and it went fairly well. Afterwords we recieved a lot of compliments. Although I'm at Disney World, I don't actually get to visit any of the parks, but I don't mind.

The time away from school has given me more time to read and listen to Focus on the Family shows. I've done a lot of thinking and stuff. I just wish that I had someone to talk to about it right now. Unfortunatly, my laptop won't connect to the internet, and my cell phone won't complete any calls.

I'll be back at school tomorrow afternoon.