Sunday, November 5, 2017

The Journey Continues, or, Extra! Extra!

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Except that this is my life, not some iconic scene from Newsies...

No, seriously, this post has updates from this past week, so it is kinda hot off the presses. Well, I guess it's not hot, I let the news cool for a few days so that I can write about it objectively; as objectively as I can for something so personal.


So that whole thing about the training orders last time... it is looking like it's going to be significantly more difficult to get the training orders moved up than originally I thought. You see, I originally signed a contract with split-option training, which meant that I would train during the summers, book-ending this current school year, but then Amanda and I decided that I wouldn't teach this school year, so that I could move up my training dates. But my contract has not changed, so after a few conversations, it looks like I am still leaving for AIT next summer (read: training in San Antonio, in the summertime... ugh).

But what this means is that I have another 6 to 8 months to take opportunities. I can actually put a few more irons in the fire, since I won't need to drop anything and leave for training suddenly. This means that the transition from teaching at school, to the emergency responder opportunities that I want to find will be a little rockier than I anticipated, but not insurmountable. I can find leads now. I can be planning and prepping and looking for my move. This could be awesome!

On the other hand, I have a lot of battle buddies from BCT who are in San Antonio, going through their medic training right now. The best part of Basic was probably the people I met and "hung out" with (I don't know if I can properly say that we hung out when we were living in close quarters, eating together, training together, sweating together, etc). Now I've got a couple of months to kill before I ship out again for training, and many of my buddies will be done. I know that I still have a few buddies who are also split-option, so there may be a few others heading down to San Antonio when I am, and I'm going to have to compare notes with them (if any of you guys are reading this, message me now so we can coordinate updates when we get orders).

Turns out that this is a short post and there's not really a quippy resolution to it, but I knew that I would be writing a part two for my last post, and this is it. So as promised, here's my poetry and my next list:

My limerick substituting for my sonnet 

I went and joined up with the Army
Found out the PT was for me
I did my push ups
Walked 'round with some rucks
And from the PT, who's so sore? ME!


Stupid Sh*t that BCT Privates Do:

(Again, no apologies for inside jokes)
10. Fall asleep during the drill sergeants' lectures
9. Fall asleep on FTX
8. Fall asleep on Sundays when they're supposed to be cleaning the bay
7. Eat their meals in less than 5 minutes and chug an entire glass of liquid at one go
6. Instinctively hold their cups and trays at chest level
5. Unconsciously address every authority figure as "drill sergeant"
4. Unconsciously stand at parade rest
3. Address a drill sergeant incorrectly, or not at all
2. Become unreasonably happy when they're told that they're on stand-by
1. Show off that US Army unit patch!


P.S. This is the 100th post on my blog! Kinda mixed emotions about that, considering the content...

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