Me Tho Pwoud.

Okay okay I skipped a few days. Believe it or not, I was actually getting some WORK done around here! Ended up leaving an hour early Friday too, and they don't need me Monday, but want me Tuesday. It's turning into more of a part time thing, but I still get like 250 a week out of it, so I guess I can't complain, since it's not like there's a multitude of alternatives.

The last couple days I've impressed even myself by deciding to move full ahead with my package for OTS, first by doing the HUGE application Thursday night and Friday morning, answering a berzillion questions that basically all boiled down to "have you ever done anything bad in your life, ever" to which I of course said NO! :) Then yesterday I managed to not only finish up my Personal Statement and Resume, but also get the ball rolling for Letters of Recommendation! Usually getting paperwork done with me is like pulling teeth, ESPECIALLY when I end up having to contact other people, set things up, ask them for favors, etc etc. Go figure though, I typed up the whole format for the Letters of Rec, and copied it into a Word doc along with my Resume and Personal Statement so I could send all the info to my endorsers, then wrote out lengthy personal e-mails to all of them making the requests, then even got a few e-mails back so I could send them off the info! This may not sound all that interesting but it feels really good to be taking care of stuff that was going to be hanging over me. Already two of the four people have answered in the affirmative, with the other two not being able to receive the initial e-mail until most likely Monday. Only need 3-5 Letters, but 4 would be a good number. I have a few other possibilities in mind in case these don't work out.

So we stand about two months away from my Officer Recruiter's deadline of October 2nd, for packages that will be going to the November 2nd Board. This appears to be the ideal one to apply for since I'd then find out the results in December, and if I get rejected it automatically goes to the December Board and I'd find out in January. After that if I don't get in it's basically over, and that will leave me like 6 months and two full quarters of school to secure an alternative option for my future if necessary. I'm not too worried though. My Personal Statement is something I'm really proud of, one of my better pieces of writing that had to be restricted to one page. That's thanks to the help of various friends and family members who all chimed in with their two cents, of course. The recruiter is requesting my physical next week, which I assume then will be within a month or something maybe. That's the only other real possible hangup, as the flight physical for rated applicants (people doing jobs in the air) is quite extensive, and something might be found that I didn't even know about. Most everything is waiverable, you just have be patient enough to sit through that process, and that would delay things a bit. You actually don't need to have passed the physical to send your package to the board, you just have to have an appointment made. So I might get accepted, and yet still get delayed due to the physical or a possible waiver for who knows what. Hopefully with the 6 month leeway I've added in I should be able to make the July 1 class of 2003. That would leave me a couple weeks to enjoy life after graduation before I actually ship out. Still don't know whether I'd drive or fly, or maybe take the train or something. They pay for expenses either way, and it's easier to take all your stuff if you drive, but then again travelling light might be smart for training. After training if I move on to technical training in Flordia almost immediately depending on the class date it would be a pain to have my stuff shipped though.

I guess there's plenty of time to ponder such issues. :) I'm just happy that my package is shaping up in a hurry, I should be able to give him my Personal Statement, Resume/Applicant Profile, and Letters of Rec by the end of this week maybe, or possibly next. Then I hear there's many many many more forms to fill out, but that's all easy stuff. Last step is an interview with an actual high level officer, which I hear is pretty pivotal. If you gain their vote and they write you a good recommendation, you're pretty much set. Thanks to all my interview training through AcaDec, I should do fine. So, the nice thing although I'll have to get transcripts from school, I go back like the 20th and will be able to get those as well as make an appointment with a counselor to discuss my schedule this year, and make sure I've got everything set for graduation, and thus get the form that shows my expected graduation date and how I'm going to achieve it with what classes, etc etc. I'll probably have to make one more trip down to the Santa Monica office after I've gone up to school, but I think we generally have a week before classes start anyway, so I'll just pop down and finish any last forms or paperwork, and be done maybe evern EARLY (go figure) before the October 2 deadline.

Only bummer then is I'll be done, but I'll have to wait almost a full quarter at school before I find out the results, assuming there are no delays. Alas, the infamous "hurry up and wait" slogan of the military.

Other than that, I went running for the first time in two weeks (shin splints knocked me out of it as you recall) with my new shoes. It literally felt like I was running on foam padding, it was great. I even did the stretch where you put your feet behind you and sit down on your heels, stretching that shin muscle and the muscles on top of your foot, which used to be too painful to even attempt a few weeks ago. No pain whatsoever. The bad news is my time for just the 1.5 miles that I started with like 6 weeks ago as a starting point is basically back to square one. I think it's just due to the 2.5 week gap though, I'm sure things will get up to speed much faster than they did the first time, and this time I'll have a solid 7 weeks before school starts to lower my times. The right shoes, no pain, and things should definitely improve at a faster rate than before. Just have to worry about properly stretching that muscle, so we don't have any repeats of the beginning of the summer. In related news, I'm only 1 pound off my all time low as of today, with that low coming having done that marathon hike up Mt. Baldy. So within the next week or so I should be down into the 180s for the first time since maybe high school?

To recap, proud of my Air Force package progress, proud of my promising progress in getting back in shape, proud of my current weight decline, very happy with the way things are going at the moment. :)

I have tomorrow off, anyone up for Magic Mountain? Walking all those hills and tensing up all your muscles on roller coasters is always a good workout. :) Good sushi there too!