So, a cooperative project... no, scratch that, TWO cooperative projects, one recently revived the other brand new, are currently moving slower than molasses. It's very frustrating because I feel there's nothing I can do in either case. Well, that's not strictly true. In the revived project, I could write something more. But in the new one I'm really waiting on other people and I find this hugely frustrating, because I'm pretty sure that as soon as I start class everything will pick up and it'll get frustrating to keep all ducks in their correct rows.
On a more positive note, I had amazing homemade enchiladas for lunch today, courtesy of Svenska, whose apartment looks a lot more put-together than mine does. We discussed the possibility of a shared birthday party after the PRT. We'll see what happens. I'd like it but I'm not going to hold my breath. I'm also kinda annoyed that my birthday probably will fall in my first week of class. Yippee. On the upside, Navy Day Ball should be FREE this year! Meaning my only expense will be getting a room for staying after! And I'm seriously thinking about doing that because I fully intend to drink, dance and have a wonderful time! And unlike Sunny Point, the safe-ride program here seems woefully inadequate. And if I did safe ride, I'd have to come back and get my car the next day. So all things considered, I think the hotel room would be the cheapest option. Now I need to find someone to split the costs with because I think it's dumb to book a two-bed room if you don't have AT LEAST one other person staying with you.
However if it comes right down to it and I can't get someone else, I will just eat the expense and call it part of my birthday present to myself.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Rifle-Qual!
Well, you are reading the blog of one of America's finest who just qualified as a sharpshooter. Yep. Go me!
Good things come to those who persist and do NOT give up, even under threat of heatstroke!
Honestly though if Mr. Highmountain hadn't offered me a waterbottle before we started, I probably would have keeled over before the qual...
So, I stood there in the entirely inadequate shadow provided by the range and I listened and I tried very hard to absorb everything that was said by the four instructors. It was harder than it might otherwise have been because I didn't actually have a firearm as I was listening to the explanation and some of the more kinetic learners were fiddling with the fiddly bits of their firearms while I was trying to listen.
So things got sorted out and we all got our stations and I DID get a firearm then. It was lighter than I expected it would be, which surprised me. It was also, I found out very quickly, not inclined to kill me via recoil, which was very nice.
I should quickly point out here that my previous experience has been entirely limited to plinking with a .22 at the end of a safety course and then shooting a handgun in Nebraska to the derision of my brother, his friend and his friend's father. My own dad just stood by looking a bit embarrassed for me. Neither of the two experiences did anything for my confidence. Then there was Boot and contrary to what you might expect, I didn't get to shoot anything there because I was waiting for a piece of paper that would declare me to be sane.
(By the way, I think it's important for my readership to know that I'm listening to Men of Harlech right now and am humming along under my breath. Yeah, I'm a little proud of myself...the reward is wicked awesome Welsh men's choral singing)
Anyway, there I was. I sat on my bench and helpful people fiddled with a box on my bench that was supposed to help me steady my rifle. I was grateful for this. And then they used very complicated and formulaic words to basically tell me "Fire at your own pace and take your time so you don't screw up." I took my time all right. This turned out to be a sort of test round. We did... five of these I think.
Anyway, at the end of the five, I was pretty proud of myself but also kind of tired and heat-sapped (heat-sapped is my own oh-so-original way of saying that because it was hot I was really tired and didn't want to do anything except die of overheating).
Little did I know that the true qualification was just beginning!
I cannot say I have ever been formally introduced to the prone, kneeling and standing stances for firing a rifle. I have been pushed into them, but not formally introduced.
First there was prone.
I will say this for prone- I couldn't fall over and that was an improvement in some important respects from the other two. The really bad thing though was my inability to breathe and fire my firearm with any degree of accuracy. I lay there on the concrete thinking "How the hell do I line everything up and fire without my safety glasses falling off of my face and blinding me? And how do I breathe?"
It was difficult, but somehow I got through it.
I kept making dumb mistakes- no 'breaking blue', but stupid things like leaving the safety on for longer than it ought to be.
Then there was kneeling. Kneeling was... odd. I didn't like it very much. Towards the very end of shooting kneeling, I sort of got the idea and got much more steady. I thought it was probably too little too late.
At last it was time for the standing position. This was not much fun either, but we apparently had ten minutes for it. I had resolved that it would not, in fact could not take me ten minutes because I had a mission to accomplish- get a good sight picture and don't screw it up by moving my firearm away from my head. I honestly had difficulty understanding how someone could _take_ ten minutes for ten shots. Somewhere in the middle, what with holding my breath and all, I would invariably lose count and despair. In my despair, I apparently relaxed enough to do well, at least this was according to one of my two coachs. I can't really thank this one guy enough though. He was kind enough to help me reload my magazines. That was about the one thing I was pretty sure I could do without screwing up too badly, but about half-way through the whole qual I got pretty badly rattled, I'm not sure by what, and I couldn't even load a magazine. I felt like a completely useless berk, but he patiently helped me out. I owe him cookies or something.
The whole thing was an experience. It was overall a good experience and I'm glad I didn't quit the handful of times I felt like quitting would have been more productive than not. I learned a lot, and I would very much like to go back at some date in the far distant future and improve my skills. But I really think I need one-on-one tutoring with someone who is very, very, very patient. Like St. Monica patient.
Good things come to those who persist and do NOT give up, even under threat of heatstroke!
Honestly though if Mr. Highmountain hadn't offered me a waterbottle before we started, I probably would have keeled over before the qual...
So, I stood there in the entirely inadequate shadow provided by the range and I listened and I tried very hard to absorb everything that was said by the four instructors. It was harder than it might otherwise have been because I didn't actually have a firearm as I was listening to the explanation and some of the more kinetic learners were fiddling with the fiddly bits of their firearms while I was trying to listen.
So things got sorted out and we all got our stations and I DID get a firearm then. It was lighter than I expected it would be, which surprised me. It was also, I found out very quickly, not inclined to kill me via recoil, which was very nice.
I should quickly point out here that my previous experience has been entirely limited to plinking with a .22 at the end of a safety course and then shooting a handgun in Nebraska to the derision of my brother, his friend and his friend's father. My own dad just stood by looking a bit embarrassed for me. Neither of the two experiences did anything for my confidence. Then there was Boot and contrary to what you might expect, I didn't get to shoot anything there because I was waiting for a piece of paper that would declare me to be sane.
(By the way, I think it's important for my readership to know that I'm listening to Men of Harlech right now and am humming along under my breath. Yeah, I'm a little proud of myself...the reward is wicked awesome Welsh men's choral singing)
Anyway, there I was. I sat on my bench and helpful people fiddled with a box on my bench that was supposed to help me steady my rifle. I was grateful for this. And then they used very complicated and formulaic words to basically tell me "Fire at your own pace and take your time so you don't screw up." I took my time all right. This turned out to be a sort of test round. We did... five of these I think.
Anyway, at the end of the five, I was pretty proud of myself but also kind of tired and heat-sapped (heat-sapped is my own oh-so-original way of saying that because it was hot I was really tired and didn't want to do anything except die of overheating).
Little did I know that the true qualification was just beginning!
I cannot say I have ever been formally introduced to the prone, kneeling and standing stances for firing a rifle. I have been pushed into them, but not formally introduced.
First there was prone.
I will say this for prone- I couldn't fall over and that was an improvement in some important respects from the other two. The really bad thing though was my inability to breathe and fire my firearm with any degree of accuracy. I lay there on the concrete thinking "How the hell do I line everything up and fire without my safety glasses falling off of my face and blinding me? And how do I breathe?"
It was difficult, but somehow I got through it.
I kept making dumb mistakes- no 'breaking blue', but stupid things like leaving the safety on for longer than it ought to be.
Then there was kneeling. Kneeling was... odd. I didn't like it very much. Towards the very end of shooting kneeling, I sort of got the idea and got much more steady. I thought it was probably too little too late.
At last it was time for the standing position. This was not much fun either, but we apparently had ten minutes for it. I had resolved that it would not, in fact could not take me ten minutes because I had a mission to accomplish- get a good sight picture and don't screw it up by moving my firearm away from my head. I honestly had difficulty understanding how someone could _take_ ten minutes for ten shots. Somewhere in the middle, what with holding my breath and all, I would invariably lose count and despair. In my despair, I apparently relaxed enough to do well, at least this was according to one of my two coachs. I can't really thank this one guy enough though. He was kind enough to help me reload my magazines. That was about the one thing I was pretty sure I could do without screwing up too badly, but about half-way through the whole qual I got pretty badly rattled, I'm not sure by what, and I couldn't even load a magazine. I felt like a completely useless berk, but he patiently helped me out. I owe him cookies or something.
The whole thing was an experience. It was overall a good experience and I'm glad I didn't quit the handful of times I felt like quitting would have been more productive than not. I learned a lot, and I would very much like to go back at some date in the far distant future and improve my skills. But I really think I need one-on-one tutoring with someone who is very, very, very patient. Like St. Monica patient.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Of bills and deadlines
So I'm pretty good about making sure the bills stay paid. I pay my phone bill on the fourth of every month because for whatever reason that seems easy for me to remember. I have an electricity bill now that I try to pay after my second paycheck though I still haven't fixed a date for that. I have an automatic payment set up for my car the day after my second paycheck. And this month, my student loan, my biggest, baddest concern, may or may not have gotten away from me. You may ask, how did this happen?
I'll tell you.
So, it was about the eighteenth of this month that I tried to pay my student loan online. I hadn't had to do that in a while. Usually I pay via money order or check- more frequently by check these days. But in a fit of stupidity, I had packed my checks and mailed them in one of the boxes to my parents' house. Ooops. And my mailing address had still not quite caught up with me. So there I was, without my checks. I tried to pay online. I submitted all the information correctly, I thought and called it good.
Then today, on a whim, I checked my bank account balance. It said I had a lot of money. This was both surprising and alarming, because the vast sum of money I had in it, I had already designated for paying off my student loan this month, and in fact had thought I succeeded in that. I called them today, at quarter to five and asked if the payment had in fact gone through and they told me... drumroll... No. It hadn't. Something about the account number being wrong.
But had they told me or notified me in any way? No.
I was just going to proceed under the assumption that all was well until I got an angry letter from them, apparently. Good thing I checked today, and not at minute too soon.
I got back into my account and tried desperately to right things. I resubmitted a vast sum of money to them and got a screen telling me that my payement would be processed as paid today since it wasn't five yet, but as I now know from my previous experience that could be totally useless if I have mistyped a number or have some kind of incorrect account info.
ARGH!
Why didn't they notify me?! Why?!
You know what? The important thing is now I know that doesn't work. And I've learned- if I have a suspiciously large amount of money in the bank for too long, something has probably gone wrong and I should see to it.
Even if the worst happens and I get in trouble for paying this stupid thing late, I have learned a valuable, painful, costly lesson. Even if I don't get dinged for cash, this is playing merry hell with my nerves. I don't know how I'm going to eat that delicious dinner I smell cooking right now. Argh... Frustration.
Fear.
Unhappiness.
I'll tell you.
So, it was about the eighteenth of this month that I tried to pay my student loan online. I hadn't had to do that in a while. Usually I pay via money order or check- more frequently by check these days. But in a fit of stupidity, I had packed my checks and mailed them in one of the boxes to my parents' house. Ooops. And my mailing address had still not quite caught up with me. So there I was, without my checks. I tried to pay online. I submitted all the information correctly, I thought and called it good.
Then today, on a whim, I checked my bank account balance. It said I had a lot of money. This was both surprising and alarming, because the vast sum of money I had in it, I had already designated for paying off my student loan this month, and in fact had thought I succeeded in that. I called them today, at quarter to five and asked if the payment had in fact gone through and they told me... drumroll... No. It hadn't. Something about the account number being wrong.
But had they told me or notified me in any way? No.
I was just going to proceed under the assumption that all was well until I got an angry letter from them, apparently. Good thing I checked today, and not at minute too soon.
I got back into my account and tried desperately to right things. I resubmitted a vast sum of money to them and got a screen telling me that my payement would be processed as paid today since it wasn't five yet, but as I now know from my previous experience that could be totally useless if I have mistyped a number or have some kind of incorrect account info.
ARGH!
Why didn't they notify me?! Why?!
You know what? The important thing is now I know that doesn't work. And I've learned- if I have a suspiciously large amount of money in the bank for too long, something has probably gone wrong and I should see to it.
Even if the worst happens and I get in trouble for paying this stupid thing late, I have learned a valuable, painful, costly lesson. Even if I don't get dinged for cash, this is playing merry hell with my nerves. I don't know how I'm going to eat that delicious dinner I smell cooking right now. Argh... Frustration.
Fear.
Unhappiness.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Y-M-C-A!
So I signed up at the local Y. You might ask, doesn't Ft. SINYF have something like nine gyms? Why on earth would you pay money for another one? I would tell you- because the PRT is coming up. And sometimes I don't feel like driving all the way back to Ft. SINYF just to PT. Speaking of which, I have set myself the laudable-but-we'll-see-how-it-goes goal of going to the gym every single day until the PRT. I already know it's not going to happen over the long weekend. If I'm especially good, I might get up early on Friday morning, but they'll probably be closed anyway so it doesn't really matter too much.
Also talked to the parental units today about upcoming trip. They're disappointed it won't be for longer, of course. I tried to explain, but it wasn't good. I understand that they love me, we just can't be around each other for any length of time.
Maybe some day I'll be able to tell myself that it just doesn't matter any more, that holding on for any longer to a bad memory of the past is only going to hurt myself more.
But I can't stand it when people who know me and say they love me can think the worst of me with no remorse and no memory of doing so.
Also talked to the parental units today about upcoming trip. They're disappointed it won't be for longer, of course. I tried to explain, but it wasn't good. I understand that they love me, we just can't be around each other for any length of time.
Maybe some day I'll be able to tell myself that it just doesn't matter any more, that holding on for any longer to a bad memory of the past is only going to hurt myself more.
But I can't stand it when people who know me and say they love me can think the worst of me with no remorse and no memory of doing so.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Awesome German food!
So a bunch of us went out for awesome German food last night! I'd like to take all the credit for finding a place that everyone really seemed to like- and disavow anything to do with everyone getting horribly lost. It's Google's fault. _I_ corrected that as best as I could, texting people the correct address as soon as I realized the problem.
The food was really, really awesome. I got the Jagerschnitzel and it was soo nice. It was probably the best German food I've had since being in Germany!
A good time was had by all, though one of the company was a bit lonely since he's not in exactly the same job as us and he might have been feeling a little lost. I hope that I was a good hostess (in so far as one is ever a hostess when your party is out at a restaurant...) and helped him fit in. I'm not sure how successful I was at that though.
We played another two rounds of 'Who Am I?' (first I was Napoleon (elected ruler, technically not French) and then I was Werner Von Braun. I got both and had a wonderful time. My two mystery people were Cleopatra and Louis Armstrong :D) over at DrunkLeprechaun's house, and that was fun. His cat is a complete and total spaz and it was hilarious to watch the cat interact with him and everyone else there. His wife is also a little spazzy, though perhaps the prank FB update that someone made was crossing the line. If I was her, I'd sort of expect it from his loony friends by now, but that's just me. Whatever.
We drove the non-car owners back to their respective barracks, after a long, thoughtful conversation about personality types. It was a good time. The conclusion? Most of us are introverted peeps. That wasn't a huge revelation somehow... But we all managed to get out and have a great time. Except for the losers who didn't show. Oh well.
And soon a bunch of cool people are going to go away and I'll have one less useful thing that I can do in my copious spare time. This means I'm going to have to novel more and procrastinate less. Bother.
The food was really, really awesome. I got the Jagerschnitzel and it was soo nice. It was probably the best German food I've had since being in Germany!
A good time was had by all, though one of the company was a bit lonely since he's not in exactly the same job as us and he might have been feeling a little lost. I hope that I was a good hostess (in so far as one is ever a hostess when your party is out at a restaurant...) and helped him fit in. I'm not sure how successful I was at that though.
We played another two rounds of 'Who Am I?' (first I was Napoleon (elected ruler, technically not French) and then I was Werner Von Braun. I got both and had a wonderful time. My two mystery people were Cleopatra and Louis Armstrong :D) over at DrunkLeprechaun's house, and that was fun. His cat is a complete and total spaz and it was hilarious to watch the cat interact with him and everyone else there. His wife is also a little spazzy, though perhaps the prank FB update that someone made was crossing the line. If I was her, I'd sort of expect it from his loony friends by now, but that's just me. Whatever.
We drove the non-car owners back to their respective barracks, after a long, thoughtful conversation about personality types. It was a good time. The conclusion? Most of us are introverted peeps. That wasn't a huge revelation somehow... But we all managed to get out and have a great time. Except for the losers who didn't show. Oh well.
And soon a bunch of cool people are going to go away and I'll have one less useful thing that I can do in my copious spare time. This means I'm going to have to novel more and procrastinate less. Bother.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Rant Alert
I've had a thought- not very original but here goes: "Blogger- for when your rant won't fit onto Twitter!"
I don't mean to use this place solely as a soapbox from which to complain and shout about the injustices of the world at large or my job in particular. It's just a relatively safe forum in which to do so, when I need to. So the topic of this rant is technology and chits.
In the olden days, you filled out chits by hand. For obvious reasons I'm glad we don't have to do that any more. Many trees died some pretty needless deaths as a result of that. Then we progressed to Adobe and had chits you could fill out and then print off and route to your respective people. One shot, one kill. If you forgot to put down something important, you'd have to do it all over again. Oh well. You'd use another piece of paper and deforest some more rainforest. Now, we have an improvement! It's a difficult to navigate, hella confusing, poorly laid out improvement! We all hate it! I think everyone on up to the highest levels hates this. It's as though the people who designed it never tested it, they just threw it together while drunk and at three AM and called it good!
Okay, no more ranting, end rant here.
On a more positive note, I'm getting caught up on my novel. On a less positive note, as we all start finding different extracurricular things to do, our carpool may be drifting apart. It happens. It was nice while it lasted. Who knows, it might still last a while?
I don't mean to use this place solely as a soapbox from which to complain and shout about the injustices of the world at large or my job in particular. It's just a relatively safe forum in which to do so, when I need to. So the topic of this rant is technology and chits.
In the olden days, you filled out chits by hand. For obvious reasons I'm glad we don't have to do that any more. Many trees died some pretty needless deaths as a result of that. Then we progressed to Adobe and had chits you could fill out and then print off and route to your respective people. One shot, one kill. If you forgot to put down something important, you'd have to do it all over again. Oh well. You'd use another piece of paper and deforest some more rainforest. Now, we have an improvement! It's a difficult to navigate, hella confusing, poorly laid out improvement! We all hate it! I think everyone on up to the highest levels hates this. It's as though the people who designed it never tested it, they just threw it together while drunk and at three AM and called it good!
Okay, no more ranting, end rant here.
On a more positive note, I'm getting caught up on my novel. On a less positive note, as we all start finding different extracurricular things to do, our carpool may be drifting apart. It happens. It was nice while it lasted. Who knows, it might still last a while?
Monday, August 16, 2010
AugWriMo
So I should be working on the WriMo, but I don't want to. I've been reduced to having a character of mine work in thinly disguised bits of real world history. None of these characters have turned out quite the way I thought they would. And honestly my attention is kind of being stolen by the party in the back of my brain that claims that they ALL fell down some stairs and hit themselves upside of the head on both sides. Really. Dangerous stairs in this port. Very dangerous stairs. Except for the one clever cloggins who insists that he hit himself repeatedly while drunk. Nothing to see here, sir. Nothing at all.
They intrigue me. They really do.
But I will be strong! I will stick to one story at a ti- oh we know how well that's worked in the past... But really. Tonight I will break 10k if it kills me. And then I just have 20k more to go because I'm not going for the big 5-0. I couldn't, not now anyway. Maybe in September if I'm still stuck on the 'let's weed with screwdrivers' team. So now, I shall stop procrastinating and get back to work!
Oh, for any amongst the readership that cares, the whole babysitting thing this weekend went off well and without a hitch. Much fun and ever so grateful to be single and childless still!
They intrigue me. They really do.
But I will be strong! I will stick to one story at a ti- oh we know how well that's worked in the past... But really. Tonight I will break 10k if it kills me. And then I just have 20k more to go because I'm not going for the big 5-0. I couldn't, not now anyway. Maybe in September if I'm still stuck on the 'let's weed with screwdrivers' team. So now, I shall stop procrastinating and get back to work!
Oh, for any amongst the readership that cares, the whole babysitting thing this weekend went off well and without a hitch. Much fun and ever so grateful to be single and childless still!
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