Federal Holidays Are Good For...

Posting blogs, it would seem. It's a good thing we had the day off too, because I had a lot to catch up on. As expected it's been a long time since I posted, and I'm kind of sad about that. Coming in I really expected to be able to sit down for a few minutes each day and chug out everything I did in journal form, and be able to reminisce about how sucky it was later. Now that we're finally into third class status, we actually do have a bit of free time now and then, but it's really hard to motivate myself to want to do anything. We have to be on point all the time, from 5am to 5pm, and then even with various evening chores or activities after that, so when we do get time to relax, step one is the head hitting the pillow, and step two is lalaland.

I know how much I loved reading the journals of others who came before me, and it's sad people won't get the same from mine. I guess I might as well get used to it though, as I'm sure much of my job won't be something I can talk to my family or friends about. It's a small price to pay for a cubicle by the window I suppose.

So what all can I say about the last couple weeks... Well they sucked a lot, and I'm glad they're over. Too much to do in too little time, a whole lot of demerits (54 in one week was my top) and plenty of downers. Luckily morale boosting is something they feel is important around here, so they make sure to make you feel good at least a couple times a week before knocking you flat again. I think we got lucky when it comes to FTO's though, ours is stern but civil. He makes sure to let you know when you screw up, but isn't overbearing about it. By now our class has lost a few dozen people, but our original flight of twelve is intact. We had our first PFD, and I conveniently had felt like crap for the two days prior, as well as during, so my run was a good minute off what it should have been. I suppose I can partially blame the heat and the fact the other two events (pushups and situps) come beforehand and that's not the way I train, but I still should have done much better. I have a long way to go to get to where I want to be, but I'm really getting into the swing of things now and should be dropping some weight along the way to make things easier. I did get personal bests in the two non running categories though so that's something to be happy about.

This last weekend our FTO gave us four hours of base privileges, which basically means we were able to wander around inside the gates for a while. We hit up the BX and then went bowling, which was quite fun. Nice to get off campus at least temporarily. I saw a ton of cool planes set up as monuments and whatnot, going to have to go back around with a camera once I have more time. I've been trying to take pictures whenever I think of it, so I've got some pretty good ones of the action so far. We wore our blues for the first time while going off campus, which was pretty trippy. You see your flightmates in nothing but pc gear and BDUs (camouflage) for weeks and suddenly they're lookin all preppy, quite entertaining. I dunno about those flight caps though, that'll take some getting used to. Going to be pretty pathetic as a nonprior to have my two ribbons at graduation while people like my roommate have like four rows, but I guess that's what eleven years in the service gets you.

Watched a Real World episode tonight now that we finally have tv privileges (we can even talk at lunch and dinner now, oooooooh), that was an interesting taste of what once was. I've been managing to get in a bit of phone time too, now that I discovered I can just call people and have them call me back on those phones, since they probably get free long distance on their cells and I can't use mine.

I gotta give a huge thanks to those who have sent me stuff, I've been making my roommate jealous because of the amount of mail I've received, and it is really awesome. You have no idea how cool it is to actually see proof that the other side of the country you used to live on is still over there. Makes my day. :)

Also gotta plug those I've talked to on the phone, that is the best stress release there is. Anyone interested in hearing how a typical day goes over here feel free to e-mail me at otsstudent.044@maxwell.af.mil with your phone number (don't have my address book) and I'll hit you up sometime. E-mail here is kind of fritzy though so I'll probably be able to check once a day at most. You could also try my usual hotmail address to the right but since I can't access that site here I'm having someone else maintain it and am checking in around once a week so there will be a longer delay.

So, we're at uh, sixty days to go. No prooooblem.