Dear Erin (and everyone else),
I've been completely out of contact with entirely too many of my friends this summer. And it's not like this is something new--it happens literally every summertime--but I'm just now realising that this is probably why I lose so many friendships between spring and fall semesters.
Anyway.
Pre-Field Training
Unfortunately, this is a normal day at A-Kon o.o; |
Well. My first move after starting back up at the hellhole I will call BappleBees was dying my hair blonde. Something about blondes having more fun? I think it was really just a gut-reaction to being in a familiar, boring place with very little stimulation (intellectually and physically). I started working out a little more--running, random push-ups, etc--but I wasn't particularly motivated as, at this point, I still believed Field Training to be sometime in late July. Thanks to a few strings being pulled, however, I managed to get myself switched into Max 3 (June 12-July 10th), so I started running with a little more regularity.
I joined a band. Well, sorta. I joined an "organized jam-session" with a couple fellow cadets and their friends. We wrote a song together! I even have a recording, if anyone is interested in listening to it...but I'll have to ask Perry's permission before posting, as he's the one who wrote it.
At the beginning of June I participated in, if I'm not mistaken, Texas's largest anime convention as a Lieutenant on the Volunteers Unlimited staff under one of my closest friends. She was a lot busier than usual, and I've become a lot less tolerant over the year, so Dalia took over the "speak softly" and I became the "big stick" regarding the management of our 80+ volunteers. It was, overall, a pretty awesome experience. Made some new friends, probably pissed off a few old ones... caught up with my Navy buddy who I rarely get to see--the whole shebang. About four days after A-Kon, I got to be a CTO at a Student Leadership School thing at a local high school. That, my dear, was badass.
High schoolers wear you out, man. |
By the time SLS ended, I was about 5 days out from going to Field Training, and I tell ya. It was terrifying. Every day was a cram-session. I'd either overwork myself physically, or over extend myself mentally by trying to memorize all of the things I had learned over the last 9 months. Wuff. And then I'd hear these horror-stories online about cadets SIE'ing and others being sent home for medical problems. I'd hear about people failing their tests and others being sent home with too many Form-17s...(SIE - Self Initiated Elimination; Form-17s are disciplinary contracts, essentially. If you get 3, you go home) I was like "I'M GONNA SCREW UP AND GO HOME OH NOES!" every day until I boarded the plane.
Field Training
Paaaast the point of noooo retuuuurrrn |
(training situations cannot be disclosed in order to preserve the "experience")
This post will be continued...