Watching stuff

Dear Blog,

As suspected, popcorn from the small bag does not taste as good as popcorn from the large tub. Despite knowing full well that the popcorn comes from the same place, I continue to strongly believe this. Saw Cowboys and Aliens today and had sub-par popcorn from a small bag. Hmmmm. Loved the movie though. Everything about it just made me want to smile and dance with glee!

There was this REALLY COOL looking trailer for a new cop show called Prime Suspects that played in the theatre. I can't describe to you how awesome this trailer looked, and I spent hours trying to find it on-line afterwards, but all I could find were these other trailers that were basically just bits and pieces from the show, and I was really disappointed. Really? Another cop show where the whole first season is a winey emo rhapsody about the glass ceiling? Aren't we past that yet? Snore. It doesn't bother me that you can't turn on the TV without finding YET ANOTHER cop-show with all female leads, but do they have to try so hard? Do people actually find this kind of soap-boxing to be good entertainment? I couldn't see a single spark of awesome in any of the trailers I saw on-line, and that makes me sad.

uber

What makes me more sad is true blood. I recently went on a true blood rampage and watched the first 3 seasons (off itunes) and now I'm DESPERATELY looking for a way to watch season 4. Season 4 is airing right now on HBO, and there are NO on-line viewing options for people who don't have cable. There aren't even any decent illegal options, which is depressing, and I have a sinking suspicion that itunes wont get season 4 until the DVD release. :( I don't want to shell out $50 bucks a month and commit to a 2-year contract just so that I can stream true blood Via the new 'online' options that you can get with your cable subscription, because seriously? That's a bit much. But what else am I supposed to do? Grr. I hate this >.<

I remember when hulu was awesome and had a whole bunch of stuff worth watching. What happened to that?

San Fran weekend

Dear blog. Hi!!

Wow, I don't post here nearly as much as I thought I would. And I'm so super busy these days! Half of my to-do list never gets check off, and I'm not really keeping in touch with my out-of-state friends and family very well either :/ Meh.

This past weekend, BFF Tabby's parents were in town. Yay! Her parents are awesome, and she let me tag along with them. We ate at california pizza kitchen which I love, and I got them all to play Munchkin with me... it's an awesome game and the rules themselves aren't exactly complicated.... there are just so many different directions the game can go and it gets confusing teaching it to new people while trying to brush up on the rules at the same time >.< Still it was fun. Saturday we drove up to San Francisco .... Pros : It was a lovely scenic trip. I was definitely delightedly to see so much of the pretty scenery.... Cons : Me and cars don't get along and I was motion sick for a large portion of the ride both ways. I don't really mind the discomfort, to me it's worth it, but I hate being such a downer, you know?

We visited the California Academy of Sciences Museum, which was pretty awesome. (my arabic teacher mocked me when I told her that's what I did on my weekend, but I don't care, museums are cool. ) There was a pretty awesome rainforest exhibit that, among other things, but the weather here in Monterey into perspective. My favorite exhibit was the living roof..... I just think the whole concept is freaking cool, and if I ever have the money to build my own house I'm totally building one with a roof like that ^_^

After the museum we went to the Japanese tea garden across the street and I got to drink tea and eat little miniature rice balls. I also bought a pretty - but over priced - Japanese style tea cup. (the tall cylinder kind, not the short little tea cup kind. )

I couldn't help myself! I miss Japanese soooo much.

Don't get me wrong, arabic is an awesome language, and I'm pretty sure I'll get a huge kick out of it once we move on to the more advanced grammar (right now pretty much all we're doing is learning massive amounts of vocab, which is a necessary but boring step in language learning. )

But there is definitely some culture-shock going on with me right now, and I miss Japan :( sigh.

Anyway. The weekend was pretty awesome. Tabby's mom brought several bags of grandma Utz' kettle chips, which are my FAVORITE thing ever - and not sold anywhere here in CA. AND Tabby got her car, which means we are freeeeeeee.

We can go anywhere we want anytime! To prove it we even went an a mini shopping spree today after class. We went shopping on a TUSEDAY. BAHAHAHAHA...... ahaha.

Also, not sure if I mentioned this before, but I joined choir. o.0;; It's frustrating bc everyone else seems to know what they are doing and I feel like a complete idiot trying to sing with my voice cracking and not being able to read sheet music ect, but in theory I like singing....and nobody is outright laughing at me and telling me I'm a lost cause.... so I'm going to slog through it for awhile.

I'm reading a couple of books right now (three at once. hehe. ADD much?) And I'm almost done with all of Charmed, so.... You might get a media rant out of me soonish :)

'cheers

THEO

Yay me...

Dear blog,

I'm up and dressed, I've showered and eaten. I've even done my homework and gone to the library. So why do I feel so guilty?

MEH.

Dear diary,

I am sitting at my desk knitting and watching Grey's Anatomy. I'm knitting even though I told myself that I would finish my HW today so that I wouldn't have to think about it during the rest of my four day 'holiday'. I'm 50 words into this 150 word self-introduction I'm supposed to be writing in arabic, and it's not as if I can't think of anything to say or that I don't have the right vocab to say it, because I do. It's just that I'm so not into it right now. I'm tired and I just want to rest and not think about anything.

This week was rough. I broke my TV fast and stayed up until at least 1am every night on netflix, and obviously I couldn't focus in class. I gave myself caffeine poisoning by drinking five cups of coffee before lunch, so then I had to switch to soda this week and it really isn't the same thing at all. I'm finally losing all ability to eat the food at the kiosk, and now just the sight of it makes me want to throw up. So yes, I'm enjoying my long weekend and knitting and not writing arabic essays.

On friday night Tabby and I went to California Pizza kitchen. We've started this thing where we are going to try every pizza on the menu, and since this past Friday makes our 3rd such visit, I feel the time is right to finally blog about it.

Our first pizza was the BBQ Chicken Pizza, and it was amazing. I must admit I was a little skeptical, after all I've always thought that BBQ sauce on pizza was an abomination before god, but it was amazing. After that we had The Greek. I picked it mostly because it said 'feta cheese' on the menu and I love feta cheese, plus I was kinda craving salad and this pizza had fresh tomatoes and cucumbers that were put on it AFTER it was cooked. It was soooo good. The cheese, the combination of the hot pizza and the cold veggies, and the combination of the soft crust and the crunchy cucumber. It was so so good. Of course, it was also drizzled with greek yogurt which I'm not really a fan of, but on this pizza it worked.

And this friday we had the chipotle chicken. Mildly spicy, with beans and salsa that left your tongue numb.... it was SO good.

Of course, as much as I like the pizza, there are other good things there too. For instance when we went on friday, the first thing we noticed was that the menu had been changed. I ordered a shrimp appetizer that was crunchy and spicy and brand new.

I also am testing out the drinks menu but thats a completely different story. When Tabby ordered dessert the waitress asked if I wanted a second drink, I hesitated for a split second and decided that instead of a second mojito, what I really wanted was an irish coffee. OMG. Was that ever the right decision. I felt GREAT after that. Went home and the next morning I did two loads of laundry, saw how gray and foggy it was outside, and decided to go back to bed. I made flash cards and watched TV in bed all day.

Today, Tabby and I went out. We walked all over, we walked down franklin street, we shopped in cannery row and got ice cream at fishermen's wharf. We sat on the beach, stuck our feet in the icy cold water, and found super cheap flip flops at wallgreens. Then, after months of deliberation, I walked into a music store and put a deposit down on a violin. It's a little more expensive than the ones that I was looking at on-line, and I'm not 100% sure that it's better, but I liked the store. It had a nice vibe, and Brian was super friendly. Buying it from the store felt right, it means I have a place to go if I need repairs or have questions, and they do violin lessons on sundays. They have multiple violin teachers. How great is that? They had to order my violin because they didn't have adult sized ones in stock, but I'm super excited, and I've been walking around in the sun all day and I'm tired, and stiff, and so yes, I'm not doing my homework. All I want to do is sit here and watch TV and knit, and you know what? I can't even bring myself to feel guilty about it.

The violin question

I have been talking about learning how to play the violin for a few years now. I can't really stop obsessing over it, and a few weeks ago when I asked the nice lady at Hobson about it, that all got even worse. She said yes, the hobson did have a violin for people to play. I've been excited and nervous ever since. I ordered books on-line and I've been listening diligently to the suzuki book 1 CD. I must admit I've been a little scared to actually take the next step - to actually pick up the violin would be opening myself up to failure, while talk doesn't let you down. I went to the hobson today though, and guess what I found out? They do have a violin, but it's broken. It only has two strings and I got the impression from the employee I talked to that it's condition was old news, and would last indefinitely. I mentioned that I'd never put new strings on a violin before, but asked if it would be OK for me to give it a try if I brought some in, and he said sure. So it seems like my options are :

wait for the violin to be fixed

buy strings and attempt to fix it myself (scary)

give up for now/buy my own violin.

Not sure what I'm gonna do. But I didn't want to waste the trip up there, so I spent two hours playing the suzuki songs on the piano. Might as well work on my sight-reading, right?

A day in the life

The other day was pretty crazy, so crazy that I think I will share it with you. No, not everyday is this crazy, but yes, DLI is hardcore.

0500 : wake up, roll over and try to go back to sleep

0515 : realize that room-mate is already in shower. Jump out of bed and dress hurriedly.

0600 : clean room, check over HW one last time to make sure everything is filled in.

0630 : Muster on the grinder. Endure uniform inspection and try to memorize the passdown. Today is the command run, muster for the run is at 1600. People with 7th hour should bring their PT gear to class and change there. Curses. I have 7th hour.

0700 : go back to room, shove PT gear and shoes into back pack.

0715 : grab an undersized bacon biscuit from the kiosk. Snag an apple pastry and some milk to put in the coffee.

0745 : After making coffee, eating breakfast at the desk in the class room, and taking attendance, turn in everyones homework.

0755-1545 : Class. Ten minute breaks at the end of every hour plus a 1 hour lunch break from 12-1300. Eat lunch in classroom in order to read kindle during break.

1545 : pack up and change into PT gear in the head. Muster on grinder.

1620 : Forward march! the 2 mile 'ish' run goes up the hill, around the hill, past the PFC, past 833, back down the hill and ends up where we started. We take up a whole lane, and it's amusing to jog past all the cars that have been stopped so that we can all pass. We are one huge mass of mustard yellow and navy blue, singing chants that we know only half the words to at the top of our lungs and keeping - for the most part - in step.

At this point I lose track of time. All I know is pain and exhaustion. Left over sub is in my fridge. Eat. Read. Rest.

1730 : Deck clean up.

Then it's homework, more reading, and bed. Room-mate goes to bed at 2100 and I follow an hour later.

Love

I may be having an affair with coffee. When it was just coffee with lunch during the week I could pretend it was just a fling; something to keep me awake during the second half of class. But now that I'm having coffee with breakfast on the weekends.... I have to admit that it might be something more. But oh is it worth it. Irish Latte how I love you.

Also in good news, the red box finally had my movie! I am number four, so with any luck I'll get to see that today. Yay!

I already finished my homework and I'm thinking about doing Monday's homework in advance just for kicks. Laundry is almost done and I started watching Gray's Anatomy...I'm not sure why I put off watching this show because it's totally epic ^^:;

Long weekend

Hey blog! I just suffered probably the most god-forsaken four-day-weekend in my life, and I was *sooooo* happy to go back to class today! I love my teachers and Arabic is pretty cool. - Although it IS annoying that I can always think of how to say things in Japanese, but have no idea how to say them in Arabic. I live in fear that I might one day blurt out a Japanese word without realizing it during class @_@

Things have been busy here. For kicks I thought I'd post a picture of my school books :

There are a lot of them huh?

Hmm. What's new? Bought a new battery for my laptop, so now I'm mobile again. Moved to a new room where the wireless connection sucks, so I have to go sit out in the lounge if I want to stream a video without it pausing every five minutes. Watched Eli Stone which was a heartwarming show that regrettably ended after just two seasons. Also watched the first season of Sarah Connor.... But it was too depressing to continue, knowing what a uber cliffhanger the show was canceled on. Siiiigh.

Read an amazingly gothic teen novel titled bliss and am now (finally after ages of it being on my list) reading The lightning thief. It's adorable. I'm having trouble getting into the most recent scifi book that I downloaded, which is always a huge disappointment. I'm thinking I'll re-read enders game and sulk.

Have a test tomorrow which I'm (weirdly) psyched about.

Cheers!

HW blurb

Hey blog!

Don't think that just because I haven't written, that nothings been going on. Oh no! Life here, while it has settled into a predictable rhythm, still lacks in the 'boredom' department. Everyday someone says or does something incredible. This past weekend kind of sucked due to me being tired/annoyed with some people. And it was cloudy. I think if the sun could have just come out it would have made anything OK, but the cloud factor lent itself much too easily to pouting, so that's what I did.

On top of which my room-mate moved out to a better room. Kinda don't know how I feel about that. On the one hand, she was cool so her leaving = sad. On the other and I'm extremely antisocial so OMGOMGOMG I GET THE ROOM TO MYSELF!!!! MAHAWHAHWHAWH. And then of course there's the almost mandatory jealousy over her now completely superior housing situation. Sigh. I love my crazy life.

I started class on Friday, super excited about that! The classroom is like this uber long walk away, so my huge accomplishment today was figuring out how to work the shuttle bus system. No more walking = Yay! Proof that despite it's best efforts the Navy has yet to cure me of being inherently lazy XD

The only downside about figuring out the bus was that I then felt guiltily compelled to ride it up to the galley and eat the 'free' food, rather than pay for the uber yummy food near the classroom. Siiigh. I might buy food tomorrow. I dream about guacamole and salivate.

Hmm. What else interesting? I finished watching buffy again..... Can anyone recommend some really awesome shows for me to watch? (especially if they are on netflix...) I definitely study best with some kind of visual/audio stimulation, and as much as I love all the shows on my 'top five' list, I've now seen each of them a minimum of 2 times....

What am I currently watching? Re-watching Battlestar Galatica (epic) and Kyle XY.

Also currently working my way through Medium (about to start season three. ) Even though I've never actually seen all of the episodes, they are formulaic enough that nothing that happens is ever really a surprise.

Also reading loads on my kindle. Read "Green Rider" Per a recommendation, It's a book I've read before and I re-read it with the idea that I would continue with the series...but now I'm not so sure I'll bother. There are plenty of more artfully written books out there.

The book I'm reading now is The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham.

I haven't gotten a real fix on the book yet, it falls somewhere between Brent Week's Night Angel Trilogy and the more subtle Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss

If that doesn't mean anything to you I'll just say, it's a really good book so far!

And I'm super excited because I have two more potentially awesome books already downloaded on my kindle and ready to go when I finish this one ^^;;

Smoke Pit

I have been spending an incredible amount of time at the smoke pit this week. It's only a short distance away from my building (pretty much just on the other side of the parking lot. ) And it's obviously a prime place for people to hang out - especially if there is extra time after chow before the next muster time. (If we're lucky and eat fast, we can get as much as 45 minutes to an hour of 'free time' before we have to muster. Then again, sometimes we barely even have time to eat. )

So, anyway. I've never really understood why people smoke. Obviously once you get started it's hard to stop, but what the hell is so appealing about smoking that makes you decided to start in the first place? I can't really answer that question in words, but I feel as if I understand now. What once to me looked like a bunch of people sitting/standing around doing nothing, I can now totally relate to. Really, smoking is not that much different than knitting, (although I'm guessing knitting is probably less deadly.) both are habits that are addictive, attractive to bored and ADD prone personalities, and extremely relaxing. Even though I don't smoke, sitting at the smoke pit and chatting with the people there has definitely been a relaxing and enjoyable experience.

I do get restless, however, and today - because I desperately needed something to do with my hands - I pulled out my deck of cards and started shuffling them. It's a nervous habit that I used to do at AACC; I'd shuffle cards while waiting for class to start, or while sitting in the parking lot waiting to be driven home somewhere. I haven't really needed it recently with all my knitting stuff, but I pulled the cards out today without even thinking about it. As if I'd never stopped doing it. My smoke-pit buddy, Lyon, immediately recognized the entertainment opportunity and promptly taught me how to do the bridge thingy with the cards. I've never been able to do that before but it took me all of ten minutes to learn. Yay!

You'll probably be surprised to learn that it's 6PM on a Saturday and not only am I JUST NOW getting ready to start my first episode on netflix, but that I also haven't been in my room ALL DAY. Instead, I've been wandering around town with the guys - mostly near the fisherman's warf/Cannery row area climbing around on the rocky 'beach' there.

Shopping

Hello!

Today was a good day - Work was light, and I ended up being on watch with some awesome people (always makes the day go faster.)

A friend mentioned the idea of going to the farmers market after duty-hours, so once I got off watch I took a shower and put on my red dress.

One of the purchase I made on Sunday's shopping spree. I would have blogged about it, but I'm still roiling in guilt over my complete lack of self control when it comes to shopping >.<

The farmers market is every Tuseday, and I've been wanting to go. There are SO MANY good food venders - I only bought the kettle corn, because who can resist kettle corn? But lots of the other venders looked or tasted good. I'll have to go back, especially to the ravioli vender! Those sauces were amazing ^^;;

There was a T-shirt vender selling this epic T-shirt. I bought it even though the smallest size they had was a medium. It's like a tent on me, but whatever, it's still the awesomest thing ever.

I also fell totally in love with this necklace. I had to buy it. I knew the moment I saw it that I desperately needed it. Then I talked to the Lady selling it. She's nice. I instantly liked her, she told me what kind of stone it was made out of and where it was from. She even had a huge chunk of the rock in it's raw form. She mentioned something about the process involved in cutting the stones down to size, and that's when I found out that she shapes, polishes, and makes the pendents herself. I have a very large weak spot for artist, but I resisted. I'm not the type of person who spends that kind of money on Jewelry. I couldn't stay away, however, and on my 2nd visit I commented on how lovely the polish was. How do you do that? I wondered out loud. Let me tell you, she said. And then she whipped out a little photo album with pictures of her workshop and all of her equipment. My heart skipped a beat. I knew I would die if I didn't have this necklace. But I was strong. I walked away. I went and looked at all of the other stalls. But in the back of my mind there was a little green stone watching me with soulful eyes, I and I knew I was doomed.

IAFTSGH Part 2

Today I went to Captain's Mast. Actually, I should clarify; Today I had the opportunity to observe Captain's Mast. Rest assured, I didn't actually get into any trouble myself!

There were 5 people masted, and each one was seen separately. They were all tried under the same article of the UCMJ: Article 92, failure to follow a lawful order. They all broke the same rule too, they all were caught with alcohol in their rooms. That is sooooo against the rules it's not even funny. Now, I have to say that while witnessing Captains Mast did reinforce my desire to follow all rules to the letter exactly, it did also allow me to feel a little more relaxed about my chances of being masted.

I'm always slightly nervous that I might get masted under article 92 for something dumb -like forgetting that I have watch, or putting my name tag on the wrong way. But keeping alcohol in your room? Is it even possible to do that on accident or to 'not know' it was wrong? Especially if you've been here for a whole year already...

Anyway. It was a good experience, but also a pretty scary once. Obviously everyone takes it very seriously, and there are all these officers in the room passing down judgement - and there's always the threat of the worst punishment ever; separation from the navy, or WORSE, loss of the right to study at DLI. If they were to kick me out of DLI and send me to some other job on the fleet, that would be like a fate worse than death practically. I love it here, I've dreamed about studying here for years, and I'm totally dedicated to this job. The idea that it could all be taken away because of one simple mistake or lapse of judgement is a frightening one.

It's all fun till someone gets hurt

Hello,

Today had a perfect ending that more or less nullified all of the bad stuff that happened; First, we had PT, and for PT we played football. I've never played foot ball, and I think the last time I watched it on TV I was like, nine. But it was FUN, and I caught the ball almost every time it was thrown at me ^^:; At one point I was trying to defend our goal (?) and attempting to catch and 'tackle' (two hand touch) the person with the football - And I totally missed him and dove straight into the ground. I thought I'd have bruises, but all the lovely marks I got seem to have faded already. All in all, So much more enjoyable than running laps!

Everytime someone missed a catch, the two people involved in the pass (?) had to do ten pushups. Whenever a team scored a touch down, the entire opposing team had to do twenty pushups. Like I said, it was fun.

After that I had evening colors. I dread evening colors because I'm short, and the shortest person has to 'call'. ( Attention, parade rest, hand salute, all at the appropriate times in the correct order. ) I'm not stupid, but I do have my week areas, and anything involving directionality or sequence is not my strong point. I'm always doing things out of order or saying left when I mean right. However, comma, today I did colors and called it almost perfectly. I think the days of me dreading colors are numbered, possibly even over. Yata!

This all means that the ickiness of the rest of the day has been nicely balanced. There were a lot of angry words, uniform inspections, dental appointments, and Captains' Mast. I'm gonnna write about Captain's Mast in a separate blog post though ^-^

Chill

Hello,

Life is starting to fall into a predictable routine. Means I make less mistakes and am rarely late to muster, but it also means the monotony is starting to show. It's beautiful here and sunny, but at 50 or 60 degrees, not quite warm enough for my taste. I'm always a little cold - seriously need to buy a nice jacket, but haven't found one I like yet.

I've settled into my new room and cycled through all of my new cloths ^^;; enjoying going shopping on the weekends. This week I went to the mall, and then spent the rest of my weekend in my room, pretty much. I'm knitting this lace shawl and the yarn is sooooo soft. My previous shawls have been done in knitpicks yarn, and it's great for what it is, but never again. I'm knitting with malabrigo lace right now, and I think my new mission in life is to sample a wider variety of brand name lace, because this shit is *soft*

Oh, saw Burlesque. Epic. I'm totally in love <3

Laptop

Hello,

My box came in the mail last week ( yay. ) It contained all of my very favorite worldly possessions including a sampling of my knitting, my kindle, DS, Journal, ipod, and of course, Axiom, my laptop.

The Kindle and DS have seen extensive use. I read This Book which is the second book in the series. I love it so much that I think I may explode while waiting for the third book to come out. If you like fantasy novels and you haven't read this book yet, why are you still reading my blog? Go read it now!

I also bought Pokemon heart gold because... It's pokemon. Do I seriously need to say anything more?

But poor Axiom, he was neglected. I had this insane idea that I would refrain from paying for internet. I thought, I could save money *and* guarantee that I get a good work out, because it's a decent uphill walk to the place where free internet lives. But no, I've realized that that was an insanely misguided idea. I now have internet. Yay. On a sadder note, poor Axiom's battery is completely busted, and he wont run without being plugged in now :(

This past weekend was my first liberty weekend off base, and I was authorized to wear civilian cloths. The box contained 1 pair of jeans, my favorite pair of shoes, and several t-shirts. (My Disney baseball cap however, was not included.)

I just do not know how to explain how wonderful it felt to wear jeans for the first time in 2 months. I feel human again, and *almost* like myself.

I went all sorts of crazy shopping, bought *more* cloths, ate out at a fancy Japanese restaurant, walked up and down cannery row, and even went into a little wine store that was doing a wine tasting. (There are many of them around here ) I think wine tasting is going to become one of my favorite weekend activities. I'll probably even by a notebook dedicated specifically to taking notes on which wines I like ^^;;

Oh, and I saw Tangled, which is a perfectly adorable movie. Loved it!

Ok, well. I'm going to go crazy and surf the internet until bed time.

Cheers

Theo

Liberty and Libraries

Yesterday they let us go in the early afternoon, (much to the delight of the 2-weekers who phased up and ran off to put on their civilian cloths, or go buy some), and the first place that I hit up was the DLI library. I went with a very good co-conspirator and we were very very excited by what we saw. They have scrabble in Arabic, monopoly in a multitude of languages, shelves upon shelves of movies and Audio, and of course, tons of forign-language books, both fiction, poetry, and history. Actual English-language books are the minority there, but I opted to avoid checking out anything Arabic (Language classes tend to be hard to study for in advance, since you never really know how they are going to be structured), and instead I checked out this wicked English-language linguistic book. (I sat in the laundry room and read it for about an hour last night. It's Epic!) The book is Modern Arabic; Structures, functions, and varieties. By Clive Holes. If words like aspect, morphology, and intransitive/transitive make you happy, then you will enjoy this book. There is even a little bit of IPA. It's also an interesting way to get a peek at the linguistic culture without jumping into anything historical or political which I don't really feel ready to do just yet.

After the Library we did a little on-base shopping. I bought boring things like Hangers, shoe polish, and a power strip. While she brought more exciting things (like a new computer.) The newish mouse that Apple is selling now? Yeah. I'd never actually seen one before and so it amused me for.... a long time.

Long story short; I consumed massive amounts of junk food and sugar, we watched the movie RED (I'm a huge Bruce Willis fan.), and in general went 'crazy'. I tried hard not to be jealous of all the alcohol drinking we passed on our way to our rooms. Siiiigh. You don't really need that stuff to have fun, right? *nods*

This morning, I totally slept in, waking up at freaking 0630 (which would mean probably missing breakfast on a weekday). I have a lot of plans for today, most of which will probably fall through, but I totally want to be productive and get things done. *nods* I'll be super happy when my laptop gets here and I can have more reliable access to facebook and stuff, but until then, I'll sign off here.

Cheers
THEO

Monterey Welcome Wagon

Hello,

Today I'm going to write about arriving in Monterey!

First, let me tell you that leaving boot camp is probably the most awesome feeling in the world. I graduated on March 18th which was a Friday, got about 4 hours of liberty to hang out with my family (love you guys!!! <3 ) before having to return to the compartment and finish packing all my stuff up. Went to bed at ten, woke up at 1AM the next morning @_@ Spent pretty much all of Saturday in the airport which, again, after boot camp was not that bad. Went crazy and bought some of the super expensive products at the body shop ^__^ Smells nice!
- My family met me at the airport and brought me a bag with my cell phone and knitting, along with a butt load of snacks and other things.
A word to other CTI's : I was told not to bring a whole lot of electronics, because I wouldn't have any room to store them or keep them locked up. THIS IS NOT TRUE. If you have ipods, e-books, laptops, ect, BRING THEM or have them MAILED to you. I'm insanely jealous of the people who already have theirs, while I have to sit and wait for FedEx to bring me mine -__-;;

The people, petty officers, and chiefs here are all very nice and none-threatening. Definitely nothing like the RDC's at boot camp! On Saturday night I unpacked all of my stuff, stuck my chocolate in the mini-fridge, and went to bed content. Since the next day was a liberty day everyone was planning on sleeping in, but I was still on boot-camp schedule and so I finally gave up on sleep and got up at 0500. Went to the head - That's Navy for Bathroom - and only as I was looking at myself in the mirror did I notice that I was covered from head to toe in ants!! I'm pretty proud of myself, I took it in stride; stripped, shook all the ants off, and headed over to the computer lab to test out the Internet. Allot of the obvious sites like facebook are blocked on the computers 'cause we're supposed to use them for studying, but ravelry and blogspot are not. Surfed until ppl woke up and then went hunting for someone to help with the ant problem. Everyone was very nice, sympathetic, helpful, and horrified, but ultimately they all said the same thing. "I'm so sorry this happened to you. " "Can't do anything about it today because it's Sunday" "Spray everything with Windex." We were led to believe that we might be able to move to a new room ('we' being myself and my room-mate ) so we packed everything back in our seabags and tried to push our stuff towards the center of the room away from the ants. The ants hadn't invaded the drawers under my bed so I kept my cloths and toiletries in there (they did find there way in there at some point, however. Now where was safe. ) Eventually, however, it became clear that we would NOT be moving rooms, and would be expected to sleep there AGAIN that night. Ick, right? But I was still amazingly chill, It wasn't until Monday that I started really freaking out. I was obsessing about the ants - telling anyone I walked past about them, even if they were new like me and obviously couldn't do anything about it. It got to the point where everyone important knew about the problem, but it didn't seem like anything was actually being done to fix it. (Although, admittedly, I may have a biased opinion on the matter....)
Then we had our room inspection. My room-mate and I freaked out because our room was trashed - we hadn't vacuumed, there were dead ants all over the surfaces from our windex spray, our closest weren't locked... And we were starting to wonder if maybe we'd blown the ant thing out of proportion. Sure, it seemed like a big deal to us, but what if loads of people had swarms of ants and the inspectors thought we were being sissies???
Fortunately the moment they entered our room they kinda freaked out. Score! Since the inspectors were higher up in the chain of command, they would really make things happen, and by the end of Monday evening we were completely moved out. Yay!

The ants were so bad that we were shaking off every single item individually. When I opened my toothbrush holder the inside was black with ants. Bleech! Good thing I bought extra toothbrushes at the PX! I threw that thing out faster than a hot potato!

So yes. My first few days at Monterey were very exciting and interesting, but I wasn't discouraged at all! It was only after those problems were delt with that the stress and lack of sleep caught up with me, and now I have bronchitis. It's cold and rainy here and I feel tired pretty much all the time. But even though it's soaking wet outside, it's still way prettier than Great Lakes ever was! The grass is green and thick, and dotted with tiny little daisy flowers, and like I said, everyone here is nice, friendly, and helpful! I'm already making some tentative friends, and I can't wait until this weekend when I can - hopefully - really start meeting and getting to know some of the other people who I currently only know by face/last name.

I'll sign off for now,

'Cheers, THEO.

Going Forward Now

Hello friends.

Wednesday 5th is exactly 1 week away from my official departure from home, to boot camp.
I decided to join the Navy Sometime in August, after a lot of thought and some rather discouraging job searches. I was looking for a job that would be both challenging and fulfilling; something that would be satisfying intellectually and financially, something preferably related to my own interest in linguistics that would allow me to further study linguistics and to continue to learn to speak other foreign languages.

For various reasons, none of which I really understand anymore, I didn't contact a Navy recruiter or actually do anything to join the Navy until much later.

However, Once I actually began talking to a local Navy recruiter, enlistment into the Navy was a rapid and painless procedure. I took booth the ASVAB and the DLAB, and successfully got a job as a CTI. This is the Navy Linguist position. I signed my contract early in October.

A new adventure in my life is about to begin and it goes without saying that I'm excited and nervous. The closer I come to my ship-date, the more excited I become. In some ways, I really can't wait. I feel that regardless of the challenges and demands of this new path, that it's the right one to take. I'm sure I will be, in general, happy and successful.

Of course, I do worry. But it's only the vague sort of concern that comes with facing up to the unknown. Everything that I know about my immediate future; Boot camp, the DLI, traveling by plane etc, those are things that I'm confident that I can deal with. It's the things that I don't know about that worry me. What if some unknown factor pops up and takes me completely by surprise?

I've read a lot about the Defense Language Institute and have dreamed about studying there for years, so I feel that all of these fears are totally worth it. After all of the grief, self-doubt, and sleepless nights of college, I have done what few people manage to do; I'm getting to live out one of my fondest dreams.

I'll miss my friends and family. Knowing that I'll be able to keep fairly easy contact with everyone I care about via the internet is a great comfort to me. So it's not a surprise that my last few days before leaving have been all about insuring that end.

I'm re-starting this blog so that I can communicate updates about my new life to everyone at once. I also plan on setting up a new e-mail account, since my goldensquare one will be a bit of a hassle to manage. Those who know the full story behind GOMN might understand a bit how happy this makes me. I haven't picked a name for this new address yet. I'm savoring the potential.

Anyway, since it looks like I've started to ramble a bit, I guess I'll finish up for now.

To summarize; in a little over a week my entire life is going to change. The way I feel now is exactly the way I felt in 2007, when I was preparing to move out of my parents house and start studying at college. All of my personal belongings are being put into storage, and there is really know reasonable way for me to predict who I'll be or what I'll be thinking this time next year. In my head, I've already started to think of 2011 as "The year of Transition." I'm on my way to something different, but I wont know what it is until I get there.