Running In The Snow

Yesterday morning when I woke up I knew that I needed to go running, but really didn't feel like it. I then remembered going for a run last winter with Misha and Steve around Misha's neighborhood after a heavy snowfall. Although there wasn't nearly as much snow on the ground yesterday I decided to see if Misha wanted to go for a run later since we had already planned on hanging out that evening. Originally we were going to catch an early evening showing of the movie Chicken Little, but ended up going to the 9 pm showing. Afterwords we went to his house and changed into running clothes. I spent a little while catching up with his parents and then we headed out for the run. We started out on the same route as last year, but ended up going a bit further down one road. Then it turned into us running some intervals up and down a hill in his neighborhood, followed by running up two huge hills. It was a good workout and quite enjoyable, which is odd because usually I don't like running very much. Since it was around midnight I'm sure the few people out driving gave us weird looks when they saw us out running. When we got back to his house his parents were still up and his Mom made us some popcorn. We took the popcorn to the basement and Misha popped in some home videos from 1990. There is an extremely cute one where his youngest sister, then around 2.5 years old, sings twinkle twinkle little star, but it comes out "tinkle tinkle little star." His youngest sister was watching the video with us and got back at him for showing it to me by showing another really cute video staring seven-year-old Misha. So cute :)

I Forgot To Title This One

After having graduated from OBC I am at home again not knowing what the future holds. At the moment I'm not particularly concerned about it because it still seems a long way off, but it's really only next week that I will be reporting to my first unit. I don't even know if they will be deployed yet, and the phone calls, searching on the web, and trying to get information out of people I know who might know something have left me only with possible predictions of what lies ahead.

I have all these ideas of what life will be like and what I will be like in a few years. As I've discovered,my dreams and reality don't actually coincide very often. I'm basically still the same person I was back in high school, but with a little more education and training. Darstic changes as a person are not my style. My TAC officer from OBC called me his most consistant lieutenant, and also told me that he thought of me as the "slow and steady one who wins the race." He noted that I did well, third academically in my class, but managed to fly under the radar the whole time because I never got in any trouble and I didn't particulary stand out in any way. Perhaps I'm a bit too consistant. I would like to improve in many areas.

While I'm sitting here typing this I'm thinking about how much it annoys me that I don't have a very good grammar base and usually my spelling is less than sub-par. Even though this really frustrates me and I berate myself for it, I don't do anything to actually change it or try and work on solving the problem. That seems to be my answer to things in life. I am very hard on myself when I don't feel I measure up, which happens fairly often in my mind, yet I don't put a lot of effort into changing the situation. My lack of effort hinders any improvment on my part.

Now to completely switch topics...for Thanksgiving my Grandma, Aunt Kathy, Aunt Barb and Cory, Heidi, and Uncle Gary and his family all came over. Betsy and Mark didn't attend since they are still on their honeymoon. Betsy did call twice, however, because she wanted directions to a mall near where they are staying. Why they want to go to a mall the day after Thanksgiving I do not know. Personally, that is the one day of the year that I try and avoid shopping at all costs even though there are so many sales and give aways. The long lines and crowds drive me away.

Seasons Greetings

Politically Correct Seasons Greetings:
Christmas Thoughts

Please accept with no obligation,
implied or implicit our best wishes for
an environmentally conscious,
socially responsible, low stress,
non-addictive, gender neutral,
celebration of the winter solstice
holiday, practiced within the most
enjoyable traditions of the religious
persuasion of your choice, or secular
practices of your choice, with respect
for the religious/secular persuasions
and/or traditions of others, or their
choice not to practice religious or
secular traditions at all ...

and a fiscally successful,
personally fulfilling, and medically
uncomplicated recognition of the onset
of the generally accepted calendar
year _______, but not without due respect
for the calendars of choice of other
cultures whose contributions to
society have helped make America great,
(not to imply that America is necessarily
greater than any other country or is
the only "AMERICA" in the western
hemisphere), and without regard to the
race, creed, color, age, physical ability,
religious faith, choice of computer platform,
or sexual preference of the wishee.

- DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTABILITY -

(By accepting this greeting,
you are accepting these terms.
This greeting is subject to
clarification or withdrawal. It is freely
transferable with no alteration to the
original greeting. It implies no
promise by the wisher to actually
implement any of the wishes for
her/himself or others, and is
void where prohibited by law, and is
revocable at the sole discretion of
the wisher. This wish is warranted
to perform as expected within the
usual application of good tidings
for a period of one year, or until the
issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting,
whichever comes first, and warranty is
limited to replacement of this wish
or issuance of a new wish at the
sole discretion of the wisher.)

Taken from: http://www.pcphrases.com/

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving:)

Wedding

Yesterday my sister Betsy was married to Mark. I don't think I've mentioned before in here that her wedding was this weekend because it never sank in for me until I got home on Thursday and was finally confronted with all the wedding preperations. Her wedding was amazing and by far the best that I've ever been to, and I'm not just saying that because I'm her sister. Heidi was her maid of honor and I was a bridesmaid. She had a total of 5 bridesmaids, while Mark had four groomsmen.

While the wedding and reception were incredible, I was completely drained by the end of it even though I only arrived home the two nights before the wedding. I think I came home already fairly emotionally drained due to having just graduated from MIOBC, having to say goodbye to my friends and not knowing when I'd see them again, moving, preparing to go to my first unit, and not knowing when exactly I'll be deployed. Combine that with the wedding, tons of people, tons of questions, and for some reason feeling like I was losing my sister even though I know that in reality I was gaining a brother-in-law (who is an awesome guy, I just don't know him very well), and by the end all I wanted to do was get away from everything and everyone to have some time to recover. I'm doing much better now having stayed at home all day without even having changed out of my pj's. I don't remember the last time I stayed in my pj's all day because usually I feel the need to clean up and get in some real clothes by the end of the day. Today, however, having taken a long bath and shower last night after the wedding, I've been fine wearing my pj's all day.

Stupid Fire Alarm

I was awoken at 4am this morning by the third fire alarm that has gone off in the BOQs since Saturday morning. Grr.... There it goes again.

Graduation

Tomorrow morning at 0900 I graduate from MIOBC. While the graduation has nowhere near the level of anticipation and excitment of my West Point graduation, it has brought about a tiny bit of emotion on my part. Mainly the emotion is due to having to say goodbye to friends, some of whom I've known for four years, and some who I have only known for four months. I'll also miss AZ in a tiny way, though it is tiny. Once the weather started cooling down a bit to where I could get away with wearing a sweatshirt at night I started to enjoy AZ much more, especially the evening and night sky. Having grown up in the tree-covered north, it has been a new experiance to be able to see for miles with out any trees to get in the way. The sky also appears much larger here since the terrain is so open around here. The mountains are different than the ones at West Point, and I will miss them in their own way. I'll also miss the comfort of having some sort of daily routine, although it took me about a month to settle in here and I'm sure I'll eventually settle into a new one where ever I end up next.

I've spent the past two weeks outprocessing and spending time with friends. Last week on Tuesday my class went bowling together during the day, and then on t Wednesday Rachel, Vivian, Natalie and I went to see the Moscow Ballet perform the Nutcracker. Over the weekend I baked treats for my class at the Munsey's house as well as Vivian and Natalie's apartment. On Monday I went on a tour of Kartchner Caverns with Rachel and her parents, and then Kate and Jordan threw a graduation dinner for me at Jared's house and Jared grilled steak, salmon, and vegetables for us. (On a side note, what is the normal way to core a head of lettuce? Jordan and I think the smashing method is normal, but Kate, Jared, and Matt(?) had never heard of it before and thought we were crazy.)

As a graduation gift Jordan gave me, among other things, a little black book. It actualy has sheets of graph paper in it instead of address lines, but she told me that it was the only little black book she could find and said that after I write down someone it in, I can call her and Kate up and keep them informed. Somehow I can't see myself being able to actually write very many, if any, names in it, although had she given it to me at the beginning of OBC I'd have one name in it already, although it would be crossed out by now. Yes, I did go on a few dates with a guy here, but it was only a short time before we both agreed that we were not the right person for each other.

On that note, it's getting late and I have to get up ealier tomorrow than I have in about 2.5 weeks (6am). As I've been alluding to, life's been pretty easy here the past two weeks.

A Listening Ear

Friend: things are not that hot with my GF
Me: i'm sorry to hear that
Me: how long have you two been together?
Friend: her mom got lung cancer and i cannot find way to help her by being thousands of miles away
Friend: about a year now
Me: sometimes the best help is just being a listening ear and nothing more
Me: guys tend to want to solve problems, but girls often just want a place to vent and aren't necessarily looking for answers and solutions
Friend: i am trying but that is painful for me
Friend: and difficult
Friend: must be harder for her i know
Me: i don't know her situation, and don't know what she needs or wants, but having gone through cancer with both my sisters in the past few years, and now my cousin, what i needed was just someone to talk to and listen to me.  i hope things get better for both of you, and that her mom beats the cancer.    

Deep Thoughts Are Okay

Tonight I had another deep conversation with Misha ranging from our respective current crush drama, to why I don’t like swearing, to if terrorists should be viewed as humans, to being deployed and worst case scenarios. It’s nice to have a friend like him who I feel free to engage in conversation with while doing deep thinking, instead of being told that I’m thinking too much again. Plus, he’s the one who usually starts the topic of conversation. We often start off with opposing views, but by the end of the conversation we have more of an understanding of the other’s viewpoint, as well as more of an understanding of our own point of view. That is, except when it comes to relationship issues because we are both clueless in that area but do the best to give each other advice.

P.S. I was arguing that terrorists should still be viewed as humans.

Navy Better Be Scared

In case anyone hasn't heard, Army beat Air Force on Saturday. Woohoo!

This was the most intimidating picture I could find on my computer. Oh well. 

Productive Friday

Friday I was actually fairly productive, which is unusual when I have half a day off. At 9 am there was an AAR for JICTC, but that only lasted an hour. After that the TAC team talked to us briefly about what’s happening next week, gave us a safety briefing, and then released us. I had an appointment at 2 pm to finish the paperwork for my DITY move, so I turned down Andrea’s offer to go run intervals because I didn’t want to have to change out of my uniform only to change back into it later. Instead I went back to my room and read one of the books that I recently ordered, The Family That Nobody Wanted. I’ve actually read it a few times years ago, but I like it and wanted to read it again. At 2 pm I went and completed the DITY move stuff and then finished all the out-processing that I could do this week. After that I drove to Gas City and get my car washed. When I got back to the BOQs one of my friends was in the parking lot unloading stuff from his car because he was about to go get it weighed for his DITY move. I had thought about getting my car weighed today, but felt too lazy until I saw him getting ready to do it and so I decided to get it out of the way as well. The process was a lot easier and faster that I thought, and now all I have to do is go back and weigh it again after I’ve finished loading everything into my car. Since I hadn’t exercised yet my friend asked if I wanted to go on a run later. That was something else I knew I needed to do, but had been putting off. We ended up running up Reservoir Hill, but then walked down it. I ran it up and down it doing a longer route last Saturday, but when we stopped on the top and then started walking down my dislike for running won out over the need to run. Later in the night I once again remembered why I’m not a video game person as I played fairly poorly on two Xbox games. I am however in love with a tiny dog named Fury. Normally I don’t like tiny dogs, but this one was adorable, especially when he fell asleep on my lap for about an hour.

Almost Done

Only out processing is left :)

Dreading Shopping

Tomorrow Rachel and I are driving up to Tucson to go shopping in the malls there.  She sent me the links to the two malls and so I started looking online at the stores in order to try and find clothes ahead of time that I am interested in looking at.  My enthusiasm for the shopping trip is quickly decreasing, as well as my excitement about going home.  

I do need some new clothes, and I do like going home and seeing my friends and family, but both things truthfully make me feelâ€?.well, fat.  The clothes always seem made for stick-limbed, skinny people and don’t fit me correctly.  My arms are too big, my shoulders too wide, or my hips are too large.  Around most of my friends who are girls I feel like a big, stocky football player because they are a few inches to a head shorter and smaller than me.  I am the shortest person in my family and at home I feel like a short, stocky football player when I stand next to everyone.  It really got to me over Columbus Day when I was home for the weekend, as it does every time I go home and am around my tall, skinny family.  

Halfway Done

I’m now half-way done with the exercise at the Joint Intelligence Combat Training Center (JICTC).  So far it hasn’t been too bad, even a little fun.  Being on the swing shift from 3:30 pm until midnight is definitely better than being on the day shift.  I am able to sleep in, be productive during the day, be motivated to work out, and time goes by faster at night in the TOC.  

I can’t believe I’m graduating OBC in two weeks.  The weeks have flown by even though some of the days felt like the time was low-crawling by.  (I think Rachel would give me a Tool award for that analogy).  I may even miss OBC, but that is only because where I’m heading I probably won’t know anybody, I won’t have the luxury of getting 7 hours of sleep a night, a work day that ends at 5 pm, and weekends off.  

I’ve talked to Jordan and am going to stay in her apartment in TX until I deploy.  Her husband is already going to be deployed when I get there, and she won’t be there for at least another month, so she was happy to have someone there to watch over it.  If I don’t end up deploying I can take a little more time finding a good place of my own instead of rushing into something because I need somewhere to live.  

Baking

This afternoon I went over to Chris and Andrea's again to bake. Of the four different kitchens I've tried, they definetly have the best one. Plus, they have the most kitchen appliances, which is probably because they are married and so recieved many of them as gifts. I almost feel bad for going over and taking over their kitchen often, about once a week, but they don't seem to mind, especially when I let them taste-test and eat the leftovers.

So far, while at OBC I've baked chocolate-caramel brownies, danish puff, tactical sugar cookies, caramel apples with different toppings, chocolate covered peanut caramel clusters, individual molassas-chocolate tarts, individual blueberry fruit tarts, fruit pizza, and individual meringue fruit pizza's. Rachel and I made the sugar cookies, caramel apples, and chocolate covered peanut caramel clusters together, but the rest of the stuff I've made myself.

Today I made the individual meringue fruit pizza's again (as shown in the picture), except this time I made half of them chocolate meringue. My class seemed to enjoy them last time, and so I hope my TOC likes the new twist.

While at West Point I made Joe Bear episodes as a hobby, and I think that here I've made baking my new hobby. I enjoy channeling my creativity into something that brightens other peoples days. I wonder if I'll pick up a new hobby when I get to my unit. 

Debate

Tomorrow there is a Halloween party that most of my class is going to.  For the most part I grew up not being allowed to celebrate Halloween, and now I am trying to figure out for myself what is honoring and glorifying to God in regards to the issue.  

Friend: I would encourage you to go. you can honor God hardcore there... it's not what goes into you that defiles but what comes out... being a manifestation of God's Love in the midst of people who need it is what Christ was all about and he often was found in the midst of the worst sinners parties, even though the religious folks were aghast.

I had thought of that as one of the two options I have, the other being not going.  My question is how do I actually be a manifestation of God's love there if I do go?  It’d actually be much easier to not go, and that is actually what I was leaning towards at first, but now I don’t know what to do.  

Me Tidy?!?

Apparently I am now considered to be a very neat and tidy person.  If you ever saw my room when I lived at home, or my room at school when it wasn’t around SAMI time, you would find that statement hilarious and wonder what drugs the person was on who spoke it.  As far as I know she wasn’t on drugs, and has never done drugs when my friend told me my room always looks like nobody lives in it, and may have even called me a ‘neat freak,’ although I may have just imagined that part.  

Now this change hasn’t come about without a conscious effort on my part.  My effort to keep my room tidy did not come about through any lessons I learned at West Point about having a neat and orderly room, but rather through something I read in one of Elisabeth Elliot’s books as well as a statement I think one of my sister’s made over the summer, although I may have imagined that as well.  

In her book The Shaping of a Christian Family,  Elisabeth Elliot writes of how her mother was taught the value of neatness and order.  Her mother describes that she was taught to believe “…in a God of order, Creator of a universe arranged in an orderly fashion, each thing in its appointed spot,”  and that, “the freshness, neatness the sense of things being placed…This was a visible sign of an invisible reality.”  The truth of this really struck me when I read it and for the first time I saw the value in being neat and orderly besides it being more aesthetically pleasing and easier to find things.

The other statement that changed my attitude on neatness was when my sister, I think it was Betsy, although I could be wrong, mentioned how if you keep your home tidy when visitors unexpectedly drop by you are a bit more ready and willing to welcome them into your home because it at least looks presentable, which could lead to an opportunity to share the Gospel with them.  

I now try and keep my room neat and orderly as much as possible.  While at West Point I noted that when my stuff was messy my life in general felt a bit more disordered, but that only caused me to tidy-up when it got really bad.  It’s been almost 4 months and so far I’ve managed to keep-up the clean streak, which I believe is a new record for me.  

On a totally separate and different note, I think I may like ice so much because my throat is rather dry.  At times I think I like the ice because I am a bit dehydrated, but other times when I am not even consciously thirsty but want ice it is because the ice cools my mouth and throat down and makes them feel better.  I just came up with this hypothesis over the weekend, so I’ve only had two days to think about it and I could be completely wrong.  

So Tiny!

My iPod Nano came today:) I knew it was small, but when I opened the box it was even smaller than I thought it would be. Rachel was with me and she too was really suprised at it's size.

Although my iPod did arrive today, actually recieving the package turned into a wild goose chase. The tracking said the package had arrived at 11:04 am, when I called the front desk at 12:20ish they said that there wasn't a package for me there. I then looked at the tracking again and saw that instead of being delievered to the address that I sent for shipping, it was instead listed as being delievered to the Mail Room. There are many mail rooms on post, but I figured that I'd first go to the post office where I have my PO box and see if somehow it was dropped off there.

At the post office the guy claimed to know the package I was talking about, although I know doubt that it did ever pass through his hands, and he directed me to a mail room across post. He also gave me a phone number to call for the mail room. I went back to my room and called the phone number asking if I could come pick up my package and they said yes. Rachel and I were supposed to go swimming at this time, so I asked her if we could make a quick stop by the mail room. She agreed, and we headed over.

Finding the mailroom wasn't as easy as I thought. We drove around for about 10 minutes looking at all the buildings in the vicinity of where I had been directed, and finally decided to stop by the MP office to ask for directions. The first MP I talked to had no clue what building I was talking about, and I got a few responses of, "Mail room? There are a lot of mail rooms on post," from others in the office who then proceeded to look at me like I was stupid. However, the MP that was helping me asked another MP who actually knew the building I was talking about and gave me directions there, althouhg it took Rachel and I one more loop around the building to actually find it.

Once inside the mailroom I was told by the man behind the counter that there wasn't a package for me there and that I would need my tracking number in order to determine where it was sent. He had one idea of where it was, my BN mail room, and called that mail room, but they said there wasn't a package for me there. I was rather disheartned at this point, and was starting to feel bad for dragging Rachel all over post, but I didn't want to give up, especially since it seemed apparent that nobody knew where my iPod Nano was on post.

We made a quick stop back at the BOQs so that I could check at the desk and see if my package had been delivered, and also get my tracking number. It hadn't been delivered, so after I found the tracking number I called the man in the mail room back and he said that with the tracking number he had it as being delivered and signed for at the BN mail room. I told Rachel and asked if we could stop over there, and promised that it would be the last stop even if I didn't find it. She was very nice and agreed, so we headed over.

When I arrived at the BN mail room they told me that they were in the process of looking for the package. Although someone there had signed for it, they had no clue where it was. I stood there for about five minutes watching them look all over the place for it and wishing that I could help, but I wasn't allowed in that part of the room. Finaly, one of the two women working looked on top of a filing cabinet and found it. Apparently, since I thought FedEx would send the package straight to the BOQs and failed to put my unit on the shipping address, when it ended up in the BN mail room, and who knows why that happened, they did not know what to do with it and stashed it out of the way until they had time to deal with it. They told me that the package eventually would have made it's way to me after they looked me up in the computer system, but who knows how long that would've taken. I was told to always put my unit as part of my shipping address.

The sad part of the story is that when Rachel and I got to the pool around 2:20, after taking about an hour on the wild goose chase, we found out that the pool hours have changed and it is only open until 2pm :(

Thanks Mom and Dad for the iCarPlay Wireless :) The squishy ball and the smarties in were a huge hit in class this morning. Some guys in my class had a great time chucking the squishy ball at each other. 

Dining-In Pictures

Vivian has a few more pictures from the dining-in in her blog for OCT 23.

Birthday With Friends

Yesterday, to celebrate my birthday, ten friends and I went out for dinner to Johnny C's. I wasn't expecting any gifts, but I ended up recieving two wonderful dessert cookbooks from Vivian and Natalie(followed quickly by suggestions of what I should bake for the class on Monday from the cookbooks), a beautiful cross to hang on a wall from Jordan, a pumpkin glow-in-the-dark pez dispenser from Hans, an impressive dolly for my table that Rachel made herself, and a framed picture of Kate and I standing in front of Big Nose Kate's Saloon in Tombstone from Kate. Chris and Andrea paid for my dinner and told me to consider it them cooking for me, although I have actually had a homemade dinner over at their place before.

Although dinner with friends was the best part of the day, having both Michigan and West Point win their respective football games was quite a nice addition.

Today is my cousin's birthday. Both her and her brother are getting growing up so fast. Don't they know that they are only supposed to be around the ages of three and four? I miss them and their parents. Who knows if I'll recognize them when I next see them.