Now that I've broken 8 min and know I can do it I need to work on improving my time even more. I want to get under 7:45. Maybe then Coach will notice me once again. It's been very humbling going from stroking the novice A boat last year to being in the forgotten four this year. I think Coach Hall might think that I have a really big ego or something. The truth is that he kinda scares me and I feel inferior compared to a lot of the rowers on the team so I don't talk a lot. Today during the briefing I thought of a new goal for myself. I want to be the stroke of the varsity A boat that wins Dade Vails my firstie year. In order to do that I need to step up my almost non-existant personal workouts by lifting and running more. Besides, I need to get in shape in case I go to Airborne school this coming summer. It'd also be great if I lowered my body fat percentage. I don't know what it's at right now, but I'm guessing it's higher that it should be.

More on that later. Time for bed. Yay. Bed. good stuff.

I BROKE 8 MINUTES!!!!!

For the past few days I've had the feeling that if I rowed a 2k on the erg that I finally break 8 min. That's been my goal since last fall and there have been a few times when I've been really close, like one tenth of a second one time, but I could never seem to break it. On Monday I decided that this week I wanted to try again and so I decided that I would on Tuesday before practice, but then on Tuesday I was talking to Leah and she said that on Wednesday Coach was going to have us all row a 2k with the us being coxed. Today I had the feeling that today was the day. Ann was the coxswain for Beth, Abby, Molly, and I. This time was a little different because we were supposed to row it like a race and she would call power 10's and 20's at the different points. I started out a little too fast with the first 20 strokes, in fact I think I saw a 1:41 split time reading very briefly. That was one of the hardest 2k's I've ever rowed, but mentally it was a lot better. I was expecting around a 7:58 or higher time for the piece, but when I was done and looked at my score I saw a 7:52.1 staring at me. It was awesome. Of course, physically I felt like crap, but I also felt like shouting for joy. I didn't mind the fact that I felt like throwing up, was about to fall over when I stood up, and my throat was on fire. I was just happy that I'd finally broken 8 min.

Yes, I am listening to Christmas music right now. I love Christmas and the period leading up to it. I know it's still a long ways off, but the music makes me happy and peaceful. Plus, it snowed today which makes it even better. Okay, so it was only around three flakes which I didnt' even see, but that doesn't matter. It still snowed. James was complaining about it and saying that he wants to temp to go back up to 80 degrees while I was saying how happy I was that it snowed. I guess that's the difference between people from Michigan and people from Texas. I'm happy with every season because I'm used to them all.

Speaking of feeling peaceful, I was at Bible study today and was thinking about how peacefull I felt there. It reminded me a lot of my Church youth group in middle school and high school. I loved the youth group because the people were so special to me and I looked up to them because I was usually the youngest. I didn't talk a whole lot at the meetings, but when I did speak they would listen. The retreats were something I actually looked forward to in the winter. I didn't care for the actual talks on Luther's Small Catachism and stuff, but what I really enjoyed was the rest of the time we had to spend together. The first few years there was a battle between the girls and the guys over spray bottles with water in them. We would each try and steal them from the other team. Going into a guys room wasn't allowed, but we still managed to find ways, usually in the middle of the night, to sneak around and steal them from the guys. I thought that the different youth group leaders, Mike M., Mike S., Lisa, and Susan were some of the coolest people I knew and I really respected them and looked up to them. I loved being around Anna, Jen, Teresa, Donny, Carla, and everybody else. When I was in high school I really like youth group because it was fun being the only girl and I liked hanging out with Matt, Dan, Joe, James, and everyone. I really looked forward to going to Church because I could see all of them. They are all really special to me.

It's amazing! Frank and I actually talked on the phone tonight. The first game of phone/email tag came to an end. We talked for about 45 min. He's doing well, needs sleep, but that goes for just about everyone. I'm really glad that we're talking a lot more again. He's a great guy. Christian, nice, easy to talk to, we both share about the same morals. That is why I want to become better friends with him.

Today I was thinking (i know, me thinking means you should run for your life) about this blog/journal/whatever. Recently I've noticed that I'm watching what I write because of what someone might think. It's not that what I want to write is anything bad or would get anyone in trouble, it's just that someone might take it too literaly or think that my writing is sloppy and I sound stupid, or take something personally that was actually just one of my random thoughts about the world. I don't like the fact that I'm doing that. When I started writing this I told myself that it'd be the one spot where I wounldn't care what other people thought. It was my place to write whatever I wanted and vent. Now I'm putting constraints on my venting and I want to stop doing that. I don't want other people to influance what I do or don't write about. I want people to read my page because it helps me be write and I think it gives them to see the side of me that has a lot to say. I like knowing what other people think about what I write and what their opinions are, but I don't want that to influance me. I need this to be my free space to vent and say some crazy stuff because I can't do it anywhere else. Therefore, I'm going to do my best to write about whatever again. In a way, I feel kinda like I'm being selfish because my main purpose of this page is for My life and other random thoughts and I'm not using it to respond to my friends. I see the comments section as the part where I can step out and talk to them personally.

Crap, it's getting late and that's why I'm rambleing on.

Yesterday I had to vote on a new uniform for West Point. It's the "civilian" uniform. Usually, when I think of civilian clothes I think of the absence of uniforms. The word to me implies freedom. The uniform that the Comm had us vote on was a polo shirt, kahki pants, brown belt, and brown leather shoes. It looks very preppy. This would be what we'd be required to wear to optional dinners, the PX, the bowling alley, and basically time that we're not in the duty uniform or the seasonal uniform. General Brooks wants this because he thinks we're wearing gym-A too much. It's the most comfertable uniform and so everybody changes into it the first chance they get. If the uniform change is approved then we'd only be allowed to wear it when we're actually working out or at practice. Everyone just loves the new Comm.

The only thing that I can think of to compare to what I am feeling right now is the second 500m in a 2k race. The 2k represents the four years at West Point and the second 500m is more specifically Yuck year. To be rather blunt, it sucks. In a 2k race the first 500m go by rather quickly and the pain of the race has not started to set in yet because adrenaline is pumping through the body. Sure, you're really nervous and feel like throwing up while you sit at the starting line and wait for the officals to count down, but then you finally start and everything becomes a blur as there's a rush of adrenaline. You're only thought is passing a boat and not getting passed. Before you know it you're done with the first 500m. As you reach the 1500m mark of the race you realize that you've only gone 500m and are not even half way done. The adrenaline rush starts to fade away and the pain starts to set in as the long haul begins. It doesn't help trying to focus on the finish because it's too far away and only serves to lessen the motivation to row. You think "this is taking forever and we're getting nowhere. Would it really be that bad if I just happend to fall out of the boat right now? What would happen if I just stopped rowing?" You, of course, keep rowing but only for the sheer fact that you don't want to screw over your teammates. Besides, you know deep down that if you quit right now you'd regret it later when the other boats finished. The 3rd 500m is only a little better because at least now you can say that you're in the 3 digits instead of 4. You're still thinking "why do I do this to myself? I never want to row again." The end is looking a little closer, but it doesn't help to think about the fact that you're half way done because the thought "Crap! It took that long to row the first 1000m and I still have 1000m more to go." Once you get to the last 500m you're almost done and there's another surge of adrenaline. It is the most painful part of the race, but you don't really care because you're almost done and the harder you row the sooner it will all be over. Then you hit the finish line and collapse, but feel a tremendous amount of accomplishment having survived the race and stuck with it.

As I said before, that is what West Point feels like. Plebe year you're focused on avoiding the upperclassmen and surviving to yuck year. It sucks, but since you're mainly focused on the present and being prepared for the next time someone asks you a piece of knowledge it all goes by rather quickly. Then comes Yearling Year. Plebe year you thought it'd be great to be a Yuck and were sure that all of the yearlings who were saying that it sucked were just trying to scare you. Now you realize that they were telling the truth. Graduation seems ages away and all of your P's seem to be ganging up on you. You're still only taking the required courses and haven't started you're major yet and so classes can be rather tedious and boring. The theme of the year seems to be "blame it on the yucks." You think "what am I getting myself into? I have 2 more years of this still and then at least 5 more after that. Do I really want to do this? Am I happy?" Cow year you at least have started your major and are probably realizing that when the cows last year said "you're an idiot if you major in __" but you still do anyways, you should have listened to them. Firstie year finally comes and all you can think about is how many days there are untill graduation for the class of __. It's so close that you can almost taste it. Soon this will all be over and you know that what you've heard is true; the moment you through you're cover into the air at graduation really is the best momement of your life up to that point. Right now, however, you just have to keep pulling through the pain.

The general consesus is that my glasses make me look smarter. Perhaps I'll start wearing them instead of my contacts occasionally. For some really odd reason I have a lot more left eye contacts remaining than I have right eye contacts. It's not like I only wear one contact sometimes.

Today I was able to get a lot of sleep. I love daylight savings time. It makes everything so spiffy.

Okay, so I have this friend who was practically my best friend the first few years of high school. Then, stuff got wierd, we didn't talk as much, etc, but still remained good friends. Fast forward to the present. A few weeks ago I decided that I wanted to start over because I didn't want to lose him. We started talking a lot more and it's really enjoyable. It's like nothing ever happened. Well, it is a little different. We've both grown up some. What I'm scared of is that we'll get too close, or one of us will feel like we're becoming too close and it'll all blow up again.

Right now I'm updating this from Annah's computer while she forces me to eat all for her food that she didnt' eat. That being Ben and Jerry's icecream and fritos. I don't think I can eat all of it along with my sub and my coffee and so I'm making Tia eat some.

I just wrote a kinda long post about my day, but when I tried to post it the computer lost it.

YAY! Daylight savings time. More time to sleep tonight. Gotta love it.

YAY! Annah got me a grey sweatshirt blanket for my birthday. This is awesome because now I have one for sleeping with back in the barracks and one to take on crew trips. That is, one nice one (the one Annah got for me of course), and one that I can get all dirty and dingy by carrying it all over the place.

Remember this? Days of our Cadet Lives. That was a while ago, but yet again, so recent.

The weekly scrounge for quarters continues. I have nine right now and then two one dollar bills in my wallet. If the coin machine is working I should have enough to do laundry.

Frank is It in the game of phone tag we have going this week.

Today was one of those days where I questioned if I'm pushing myself hard enough and felt like I'm not a good team leader, student, athlete, etc. I keep comparing myself to my friends and classmates here, which I know I shouldn't do. It's just so hard not to, especially when I'm always around them. Most of my friends are at the top of the class and seem to have straight A's in the advanced classes while I'm earning mostly B's in the regular courses. I don't spend the time on my classes that I should and that frustrates me, but yet I can't seem to find the motivation and self-disipline to put a lot of effort into the classes. I want to have straight A's, but when I make B's from doing minimal work I keep telling myself that's okay. I feel as though I'm below average.

Yesterday's dinner with Dr. Narverson went pretty well. I sat pretty close to him at the table and so was able to pay attention to what he was saying. Instead of talking about the topics of pacifisim and Just war like I thought he would, he instead focused mainly on Kant and his work The Metaphysics of Morals. There was an airforce cadet next to me who kept telling me that she was completly clueless about what he was talking about, but I found that if I actually listened closely I understood a lot of it. However, it wasn't that interesting. I don't like moral theory or any english type class for that matter. Give me logic and math any day and I'll be happy. The lecture that Dr. Naverson gave to all of the cadets in philosophy followed along exactly with the paper he wrote that we were supposed to read before hand. I'd read over it about twice because that's what I though he'd talk about at dinner, and so by the time the lecture came around I was thourghly bored, but was able to show Amaka, Rachel, and Abby how much time we had left in the lecture by pointing out exactly where he was in the paper. As James later wrote about it "it was an hour of my life wasted."

Today I finally got off my butt and started working on a solution to my being a crappy team leader. I haven't been spending the time on FCDT that I should and it's been boring, but today I came up with an idea that should make FCDT more interesting and helpfull for both Bowlby and myself. Over the next few weeks we're going to discuss OPORDER's, FRAGO's, different branches, different tactical equipment, and other such things as they relate to him planning a spirit mission and writing an OPORDER for it. Once this is done I'll get it approved and he'll carry it out.

I think I'm actually getting a little stronger with rowing. The other day I beat both Kathy and Tia and tied with Trish at 322lbs for the leg press thing on the Dyno's. With weight machines at Arvin I'm only at 360 lbs on the leg press, but hopefully if I work out there more frequently I can increase it to past 400.

This weekend I'm rowing in the B eight boat because our four accidently didn't get entered in the race. My boat is racing the A boat, two of the Canadian National team boats, plus everyone else entered in the same race. This week we've made vast improvements in our rowing ability. Our average 500m split came down to around a 1:55 and on power 10's we're getting down around 1:45. I'm happy because I'm starting to push myself a lot more out on the water. At first it sucks, but then I start to like the suck and keep pulling harder. My biggest weakness is that I rush the slide on the recovery. One thing I'm working on is completely relaxing during the recovery and then having a really fast leg movment after the catch.

That was close. Last night I told Kyle that I'd take the Q for him 3rd hour today because he had a quiz he needed to take and I the last 3 hours off this morning. Walking back from physics I realized that I really needed sleep. Some things that clued me into this were the fact that during class I couldn't sit still and recently I've noticed myslef getting a little more irritable. It's like I'm a little kid again who is exhausted. Anyway, I decided to take a 30 min nap right after class and then I would have 20 min left before I had to take the Q. The nap was great, but when my alarm went off I did something I never do. I decided to go back to sleep for 10 more min and I didn't set my alarm. That is a major mistake many people here make and end up paying for on the weekends with hours. Alyson came back from class and I realized that I'd actually gone to sleep and it was now 25 min later instead of only 10. I jumped out of bed, tucked in my shirt, put on my neck tab, and raced down the hall to the CCQ desk. Amazingly, Kyle had just signed out a minute before that and then on the next line put "CDT **** assumes duty" and left the time blank. I signed in and since it was only a minute later nothing was unusual. I almost screwed him over by being asleep because if Alyson had not come back from class and I had woken up later the time difference would be very large and might have ended up in hours for both of us. I just realized I still have the key to unlock the safe that holds all of the keys. Oops.

I had a great birthday yesterday and was very glad that I didn't get a birthday party from the plebes even though the cow on CCQ was trying to get them to give me one. My parents bought me a remote control car which I actually got on Monday and so it kept me amused that night while I was on CCQ. They also bought me a Sonicare toothbrush and had balloons and a big frosted cookie thing sent to my room. The CCQ had to deliver those and that's why he was pushing for the birhtday party. The toothbrush is awesome and I've brushed my teeth almost 10 times today. Okay, maybe not that many, but it's still a lot and Amaka makes fun of me for it.

Augh! It's way too late for me to be up. I need to get to bed or else I'll be a goner in physics tomorrow.

MAJ Farmer baked cupcakes for my math class today because it's my B-day. At the beginning of the year we all had to fill out a bio sheet and now whenever it's someone's birthday he bakes cupcakes. That person has to come up to the front of the class and do pushups while everyone sings happy birthday to them and then we all get to have a cupcake. It sounds a little childish, but it's a lot of fun and everybody enjoys it. They were yummy.

Heute ist mein Geburtstag. Jetzt bin ich neunzehn Jahre alt. Weisst du was ich sagen? Ich habe nicht Deutsch sprachen in ein langes zeit.

I think I just butchered that to pieces. Oh well, I tried.

That rules! Haircut inspection didn't happen this morning because it was too dark out. Instead, they sent us right into the mess hall and we actualy got to eat and leave early. My day starts off on a good note.

I never want to be even slightly intoxicated in front of my subordinates. 21 Oct was the 21st b-day of someone in my company and she came back this evening very drunk. Since I was on CCQ I saw her as she tried to walk down the hall with the support of a good friend of hers and still managed to fall down at least four times. It was very funny to watch, but she's in my chain of command and although I understand that it's basically a 21st birthday tradition for most people, for some reason I was very sad to see it. A few plebes came by the ccq desk for something and saw her trying to walk down the hall. I tried to hurry them out of there as fast as possible. What I really wanted to do was prevent them from seeing anything, but that wasn't possible. Yes, drinking is a very prevelant aspect of most college life, but I feel that when a person sees a member of their chain of command, or anybody that they have respect for, drunk and looking like and idiot they lose some respect and will to follow that person. Maybe I'm too idealistic, and perhaps I'm expecting too much, but I want someone to be able to look up their chain of command and other people they respect and be able to say that those people exemplify what right looks like 100% of the time. Yes, there is some room for forgiving and forgetting, but right now I'm not sure where that line is for me. In my eyes my military and physical, and perhaps academic standards are not high enough and that bugs me. I think I have good morals, but don't want to push them on anybody. I do not drink, but am okay with going out with friends who do drink.

Why are drinking and smoking such a big deal to me? I don't understand why I have such a strong stance against myself doing either of them. This weekend I went to my first college party at BU and found the purpose behind it rather stupid. I had fun hanging out with my friends, but what's the point of haveing a party centered around some liquid that makes people act stupid and do things they'll regret. All the secondhand smoke also gave me a headache. I see no problem with something like a glass of wine at dinner or drinking beer when watching a game, but I find it revolting when the drinking is done to such an extreme that it impairs someone, especially when they do it on purpose. Does that make me really weird? I'm scared that my friends won't invite me anywhere because I don't drink, but I have fun in my own way. Perhaps I feel so strongly about all of this because I made it a goal to not drink until I'm 21 and to never smoke. Since I'm very goal oriented and very competitive it all comes out in my trying to achieve this.

Good news, I finished my essay. Now I have to study for my spanish writ tomorrow morning.

CCQ tomorrow. Yuck. That means I get to sit at a desk all day and do nothing instead of going to classes and stuff. When I was a plebe I thought'd it be cool. Now as a yuk I know better. Oh well. All's fair in love and war. Okay that was random, but I'm tired and prone to random comments when I'm tried.

Frank emailed me today and said he'd call tomorrow (that being today becaue it's 12:12am right now). I have to email him sometime and tell him I won't be able to talk tomorrow becaue of CCQ.


Funny stuff. Amaka sent me this. He was in my Company last year before he graduated and is now a 2nd LT. It provided a good laugh for the night.

CCQ = Cadet in Charge of Quarters. aka Company Slave for the day.