Dear world,

The business of me walking upright is no indication that my brain has actually gotten its act together. Unless you find a way to wake me up that dumps a fair amount of adrenaline in my system (thereby ensuring the morning but wrecking the rest of the day), I will not be capable of independent thought for the first forty minutes of the day. It's all very stimulus-response. I recognize the need for a shower, so I shower. I recognize that I am hungry, so I have breakfast. I recognize that I am not wearing the Uniform of the Day, so I rectify that situation. These are all prescribed responses. If you try to insert some OTHER program command before 0600, you very well might hang the entire system.

At least until breakfast is over.

For you...

I'm strengthening my faith.
I'm getting a good education, to get a better job, to support whatever family it needs to.
I'm working hard.
I'm maintaining my health to the best of my abilities.
I'm lengthening my endurance.
I'm pushing my patience.
I'm pursuing my passion.
I'm learning to love.
I'm increasing my wisdom.
I'm praying.
I'm enduring.
I'm hurting.
I'm mending.
I'm growing.
I'm honing my skills.
I'm pursuing.
I'm singing.
I'm crying.
I'm laughing.
I'm trying.
I'm running.
I'm struggling.
I'm yearning.
I'm doing the menial tasks.
I'm making the most important decisions of my life.
I'm sacrificing.
I'm planning.
I'm saving me.
I'm offering what heart I have.
I'm living.

For You,
For you.

-----

This isn't mine at all. My friend Tater wrote it back in 2007, and I was moved and inspired. Hung it up in my locker at school, sealed to the door with packing tape so that I'd see it every day before Band.

There's a lot about finding the right partner, or what makes him a good partner, what to look for in a mate. Camp and Berean (they both sort of happened at the same time) were the first places where friends and I started really talking about what it would mean to focus instead on becoming a good partner, putting more energy into preparing ourselves for them than seeking them.

We tended to focus even more on the concept that none of us have any real idea what mountains God's going to want us climbing, so, we wanted to get ourselves as strong, as fast, as flexible as we knew how (not just physically). I sometimes think we misunderstood the concept of having God as our strength, but other times I'm convinced that God calls us to do the best we can, give Him our best, and let Him take care of everything beyond our best.

Anyway, this was written by a guy in college. And I'm a girl in the military. But almost all of it rings true here, too.

Ask a Silly Person...

In his defense, my reputation is for being an overly cheerful walking Discovery channel. I'm too happy and I know stuff, in everyone's opinion. With the exception of the roommates and a half-dozen friends, I don't think anyone on base is aware of this aspect of the Firefly.

One of the misadvantages (no, not disadvantages - misadvantages) of self-paced computer-based education is the point when your brain can't take any more stuffing. Needs some variety. But we each hit that point at, well, different points.

So, when my friend from the other side of the room meanders my way for some chit-chat, I'm still mentally gnawing on a concept in digital electronics, eyes focused on the screen, ears focused on my friend, and brain processing both signals with a fair amount of extra noise borrowed from the "random" circut just to produce an output signal.

The result sounded something like this.

"So, what did you do today?"

"Conquered a small town in Norway." I'm still mildly glaring at the screen. The math isn't working. I don't like it when the math doesn't work.

My friend audibly blinks.

Somewhat reflectively, I elaborate. "Well, not so much 'conquered' as 'inveigled into my jurisdiction'. The mayor was a bit of a stiff, so we all had a chat, and they like me better. Or something like that. I don't really speak Swedish. Anyway, it's mine now."

"They speak Swedish in Norway?"

"No, the town started out in Sweden. I moved it to Norway. So, yeah, I guess they're speaking Swedish in Norway. Anyway, it's mine now."

"Uhhhmmm....what are you going to do with a town in Norway?" He's trying. Gamely trying to follow this. Offer him your pity, friends - I have yet to break the delivery of straightfaced nonchalance.

"Set up shop. Learn to play the harp. See the midnight sun, go barefoot in the hot springs. Raise sheep. After I retire, anyway. First, I have to teach the villagers how to fight vampires."

"Ah." He thinks this over. A wiser man would by this point have retreated to his desk on the other side of the room. He's young - first year of his enlistment. He will learn. "Er, are there vampires in Norway?"

Foolish boy. Quit giving me opportunities for material. "All over Scandinavia. There didn't used to be. The Vikings kept 'em back - Scandinavia's all Viking territory, and the vampires were content down in Romania. They fought with the Germans over Schwarzwald, but then the werewolves came in and wanted it, too, and there wasn't enough territory, so they started moving north again. But that was right around the 1200s, and the Vikings had found Canada and said, 'Hey, prime real estate, we will call it...'This land!'* And so they all moved into Canada, and kept moving deeper and deeper inland, and generally getting tamer and tamer as they went in, until they reached Minnesota and became Lutherans."

Another audible blink, but there's more.

"So, they're all quiet-like now. They don't do war and conquer anymore; now they just do what they can to bring a dose of peace, happiness, and good food wherever they go. An excellent way to conquer the world, really, but it means that no one's left to fight the vampires!"

Trouble indeed. Ah, perhaps this will be more familiar territory, here, then, let us pursue this train of thought. "How do you fight vampires?"

"You resuscitate them. Because they're the undead, animated by an unnatural force, you need to bring them back to life, so that they'll remember that they're supposed to be dead, and die."

Curious. "How do you resuscitate a vampire?"

"Well, CPR's really tough, what with the fangs and the whole them-trying-to-kill-you thing. That's why I need to finish my nursing degree, and bring my other health science friends with me. We'll find a way to bring them to life, they'll die, my friends can go back to Mayo if they want, the villagers will be happy, I'll retire and raise my sheep**."

At this point, my friend gives up, and tries my serious, studious deskmate instead. "What did you do today?"

Not looking away from his computer screen, he responds. "Not that."



*I am never above quoting Firefly. I will be quoting Firefly on my deathbed.
**You can ask about the sheep if you want. You'll be getting a response similar to this whole shebang, but you can ask.

More Introspection

So, one of the well-known (er, among staff, anyway) legends of camp is that Firefly is uncatchable. Charting a random course that can be seen but not followed, or certainly not kept up with for any length of time, and even to such a person as COULD match pace, the terrain and direction will prove more challenging than the Iron Man competition (though not the Iditarod, we've decided).

It's been something fun in the identity, a point of pride for some time. And, I'm coming to realize, a very self-serving one.

And, talking with a few girlfriends, I have this long list of dreams and plans for my enlistment and the ten years to follow - but they're all remarkably self-serving. Yes, okay, it's college, and volunteer work, and nursing, but it's all about me. How good it makes me look, while still conveniently not allowing anybody in. Nope, too busy, can't have a partner along on this, sorry!

Because I can live in cramped quarters, and blinding cold, and hundreds of miles away from the people I love most, and not get access to good food or proper showers or stress relief...because it's all me doing it. How cool am I, to be able to pull this off!

Scary thought - if I was married, there'd be somebody else who's REALLY there all the time. Not someone I go visit, or meet up for lunch, or go on dates with. Somebody who actually gets to see how lazy I can be, or how much of an emotional mess I turn into given proper provocation, and realizes that I'm NOT as cool as I think I am. Someone I'd love, and couldn't just shrug it off if they didn't love me back.

Works with everyone else. If someone on base doesn't think I'm a rock star, pshhhh, whatever, I know I am. Anyone else, I can just breezily remind myself that they don't really know me. If I got married, someone conceivably would.

And that's scary. I can surf down mountains, respond to missile attacks, run big races, fight fires, respond to a bedwetter at 2 a.m., take medical threats with a grain of salt, stay up for days at a time (not that I'm entirely sane on the other side of this, but if it's required) - but loving somebody like, giving them all of me without knowing if they'd want it, really letting someone in to all that I am...ay. None of that other stuff is a surrender. I had an understanding with the world - I surrender to God, I obey authority, and I love my friends. Surrender to another person, to someone who's flawed, letting them in where they can hurt you and giving them the ammunition to do so...I did that already, and it didn't work out (not that he got all nasty, but it's like they get to know the best parts of you and then decide that they don't want you), and I don't want to do it again.

In any other challenge, that'd be the point where I'd say, "And that's why I have to." It's scary, it hurts, and I don't wanna do it - that's why I need to stop running from it and face it. Not that this is the best time - A School is nuts on the busy scale, and while I could see starting something maybe after I make ET2 (that'll be a good two years from now, but the process to get ET2 looks fairly challenging)...but I need to stop trying to chuck more "good" things in.

I had a plan that was chock full of good things and picking up every 3-5 years to relocate and wouldn't have really allowed me to settle down before I was 45. And thanks to the gentle remonstration of said friends, I'm beginning to wonder if my agenda had nothing to do with God's direction.

So, it's not just that I'm crazy busy and don't have time for a relationship right now. It's that my ego's vitally important to me, and I don't want anyone to screw it up, so I make sure that there's too much going on to really let another person in. And I honestly have fun with this, I enjoy life - but somebody's been working on me lately, and pointing out that "fun" is not necessarily synonymous with "right".

Liberty isn't "the right to do whatever we want." Liberty is, "the right to do what's right."

And once I realize that I'm somehow running from something I'm afraid of, that's a clue that, while it's not anything that would be harmful for somebody else, what I'm doing right now would fall under, "wrong."

Sighhhhh. Having friends who can call you out on your junk is a pain sometimes. Thankful, but man, learning hurts.

A Few Medical Notes

Giving someone a ride to the hospital for a pelvic exam: Not the time to cheerily sign off with, "Have a good one!"

MRIs are my new favorite medical procedure. They give me candy, I get to stay modestly dressed, and sleep in a tube for forty-five minutes. Yes, admittedly, it's noisy. I spent the whole time pretending that I was somewhere in the belly of the Starship Enterprise (which accounted for the noise), and that nobody could find me and wake me to do one more productive thing. Bliss.

20 minutes before the end, the pretty technician woke me up to give me a shot. I'll assume that this is the case for all military, but it definitely seems to be the case with all sailors; We no longer care what's IN the shot. Nope. We get 9-12 shots over the course of Boot Camp, we get random ones periodically, and anytime we deploy we can probably count on another 12. All we care about is that the person on the other end of the needle is qualified. You're trained, fine, whatever. If you're NOT at least a corpsman, get yourself and your pokey stabby thing away from me.

We use corpsmen for everything. Corpsmen are roughly equivalent to EMTs for their training, plus double boot camp. If it's something really interesting, while you're on shore duty, you can go higher up the chain to get an actual doctor. Since ETs are in A School forever, this is considered our shore duty time - we'll be on sea duty for the five years after that. If we want to reenlist, we go on a 5-and-3 schedule until we change rates, make officer, or retire.

The women's health section of the hospital is the nicest place on base. Care has gone into the decor. Comfy furniture, in pleasing colors, and everyone - nurses especially - is actually nice to you. You have trouble remembering the proper way to respond when someone's truly nice to you - typically, when you're being nice to someone, you're physically helping them while being verbally abusive (but entertainingly so). Navy humor is actually really cutting in the real world, Adam says. We just don't think about it, because we're used to it. It's right up there with a back slap.

This is part of the reason I'm looking at both Wyoming and Alaska for after I get out. I will need time with the trees and letting go of an entire subculture before I can be released among regular civilization again.

Congratulations and Retribution Are In Order

Yes, this actually happened.

There are probably a few students on base who use actual alarm clocks, but the majority of us just use our cell phones. In my barracks, all the racks are loft-style, so that you're six feet off the ground, which will affect the way the light and sound bounce around the room into the faces of your sleeping roommates.

Should you, y'know, be texting after hours, or have different wakeup times. I've taken to setting mine on vibrate and stuffing it somewhere in my pillowcase to try to disturb the 'mates less.

O'-, for some wacky reason, only needs about 4-5 hours of sleep a night. She'll usually wake up around midnight to go chill with some friends on the smoke deck. M- and I both try to get to bed early

0230. Yep, in the morning. M- is in a pretty solid relationship with a gentleman back home in Texas. If he's calling at this hour, it's gotta be important. But, unknown to us, he loses his nerve, and instead focuses the conversation on something else he's stressed over (this we can deduce by her method of beginning or ending every sentence with, "...baby.")

With a relieved air, she wraps up the conversation, and the three of us return to the realm of dreams. Until sometime after 0300, when Texas calls again. Okay, okay, she's a little more irritated now, but

0400. We have to be up in an hour. He knows this, they practically live in each other's cell phones, could you not WAIT an hour? No, evidently not. She said later that he asked, "Hey, um, am I making you mad?" Out loud, she's going, "No, no baby;" in her head, "YES!! What do you WANT already?!!"

0600, after breakfast and quarters (morning muster and instruction). "Sorry about last night, guys."
"Oh yeah. Hey, is he okay? What happened?"
Quiet. "He proposed."

Excitement! Glee! Joy! Celebration!

And sheer bafflement. Because, why in the world would you propose at FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING?!

She doesn't know, either. But, this man is a genius - he has with one move managed to deeply annoy, confuse, and enrapture the three of us. We're still utterly puzzled on why he HAD to call her so early in the morning for this, but annoyance dissipates swiftly, on to celebration!

Booted Out of Drill Boots

Sorry to disappear on everyone. Or, maybe I haven't been gone long enough that anyone noticed. The passage of time is very weird here.

That'll probably keep cropping up for as long as I have a life in here and relationships out there. The time doesn't pass the same way - it's a lot longer on this side.

This whole week's been crazy-busy, with a brief stop-off on getting nastily sick on Tuesday. Apparently my friend down the hall came to check on me and thought I had died by how pale I was. I was asleep at the time. Seriously, people, check for pulse. Makes a big difference.

One of the big points to stress in all of our on-base news is how overmanned the Navy is. At present, there's at least a one-year wait for DEP - that's the time between when you enlist, and when you actually leave for Basic. I suspect that this may not be the same for all rates, but I can believe that it's most of them. Also, it's a LOT easier to get dismissed now.

Which brings up another interesting point that a few of us girls started talking about in Boot Camp. The stakes are now that much higher. If you serve out your enlistment and then go anywhere else to get hired, having the mark that you served in the military opens a lot of doors (or at least it did before the economy tanked - there's a reason that we're now overmanned). BUT, getting dismissed before the end of your enlistment...that makes you practically impossible to hire. Medical discharge is different, of course.

I got to see Chief this morning. The lad who had the privilege to precede me was having a chat with him (I use the term "chat" humorously - getting verbally flogged would be more accurate) because the kid fell asleep in class. It is possible to get recommended for separation for falling asleep in class. Separation means you go back out into the real world, except now there's this permanent mark on you that says you failed at the military. That's a smaller example - they're cracking down in a lot of areas. The biggies for us are any discipline infractions, failing to maintain the physical requirements, and failing to cut it in your program. Used to be that the Navy would reclassify you into another rate. Not now - don't bother, you failed once, we've got another recruit out there somewhere who's ready to take your spot, and maybe they won't biff it up.

But, all is not gloomy. Actually, these grim little expressions flit around the crowd of sailors when we hear more about this, but then half an hour later, it's like we just figured out the next piece of the climb, tightened our harnesses, and we're back on what we were doing before. Camaraderie's building quite a bit with the coming summer - sometimes more swiftly than you realize. Suddenly, you're friends with about five people, and you have no idea how it happened.

Also! The Leading Chief Petty Officer is sort of like the principal for Combat Systems School. It's just a role in any chain of command - somewhere up the chain, you have the Leading Petty Officer, and higher than that, the Leading Chief Petty Officer. He's an E-7, which means that I am in his eyes a cockroach.

No, really. We all are. There are thousands of us, we all look the same, we have about the same abilities and the same function on this base, and you can put us through surprising amounts of nastiness without worrying about us dying off. And, on the off chance that someone DOES get booted because they couldn't make it through said nastiness, the higher-ups would notice very little difference. Also, we tend to look out for each other against the common enemy.

But today, I am a happy little creature, and I'm on my way from one place to another place inside the school. And, being a happy little creature, I tend to have music playing in my head*, and perhaps it might be in a certain accent, from a certain Monty Python production, and involve some whistling. And perhaps, just perhaps, I might be singing in a funny little accent, and whistling a funny little tune, just being in a funny little mood...and I might happen to come around a corner to find a Chief. Who's not funny at all. And definitely not little.

A silent scurrying to stage left seems the most appropriate response here. No comment from the Chief - perhaps he took no notice of me. A few minutes later, return to my classroom, mindset to get back to work...aahhhh, what is this? Someone from the class needs to go down and talk to the LCPO? And I was volunteered because I was out?

Oh dear.

If he recognized me, he gave no sign. Possibly, he considered it, and decided it would just be too weird to go through paperwork on it.

"If life seems jolly rotten, there's something you've forgotten, and that's to laugh and dance and smile and sing..."
*This is always the case. Sometimes it'll be a very odd blending of three songs at once.

I wish I had an eyepatch...

...because I lost a screw on my glasses. Which wouldn't be such a problem, if I didn't also have some kind of weirdness from my contacts. I can wear one of them without issue, but the other's just not having it today. And I've a four-hour watch this afternoon. So, it'd be cool if I could wear an eyepatch, and yell "Yarrrr!" at any of the women who want to go up to the male deck.

Hey, it'd be fun to yell "Yarrr!" at the males, too.

It's common knowledge that I don't exactly act my age. I don't even look my age, apparently. I don't know exactly what I do act like, but 23 ain't it. Actually, this has been the case with most of the previous years - I'd only feel that particular age for a few months, and then it would be off and wandering again. I seemed to spend a lot of time at 19 while I was 22. Now, I'm off and wandering in the other direction - my subconscious is pretty well-convinced that I'm 26, and is kind of thinking about making a frightening break for 33 when my back is turned. All of this leads to conversations like this one:
Me: "So, yeah, but you don't really have to worry about it yet."
Friend: "Yeah, but it just seems like everyone else is already."
Me: "Psh, I'm not."
Friend: "Yeah, but you're younger than me."
Me: "Not really. How old are you?"
Friend: "28."
Me: "Huh. Did not know that. Well, that's not that big a difference."
Friend: "Broph, you're 23."
Me: "I AM?!?"

Today's an easy day. Your first couple of times having a duty day on a weekend, you're kind of annoyed about it, because that's your free time. Now, I have a dozen things to do, but, oh darn, I can't do any of them, because I can't leave the ship, which means I get to finally take care of the four or six things that I've been putting off in favor of the other harebrained runarounds. Like sleeping. Zzzzzz.

Mills used to claim that I was a stoner because of some of the things that I say either late at night or first thing in the morning (if we aren't rushing around trying to be somewhere in the morning - 5 days out of 6 right there). Today, I voiced the opinion (into my pillow) that June needed to be twice as long, because it's such a nice time of year, but it makes everyone so sleepy, so we should all sleep through the first June and then enjoy the second one.

Today, our assistant section leader decided to make pancakes for the entire duty section. Pretty easy feed - duty section's the only people who'll be wearing digis on a day off. Pretty easy idea, too - she got a griddle, couple boxes of pancake mix, some syrup, somebody had butter, and ALL of us have some kind of dishes (I'm prone to storage containers that double as cereal bowls, and an inexplicable number of cups.)

It's against regulations to be in your rack in uniform. But, with the exception of yours truly having a watch at noon, the three of us* have nothing specific to do until the next muster, so this seems like excellent napping time. However, a call can go out at any moment for our duty section to come deal with a flood in the ladderwell, a fire in the lounge, groundhog in the laundry room, you name it. So, we have to stay in uniform. So, we can't be in our racks. So, to a one, we all neatly unlace our boots, sling our blouses over the back of a chair, and nap on the floor. Call goes out, we're on our feet, slinging the blouse back on, grabbing a cover and flying out the door - but for now, carpet-slumber times three. Nice.

Thanks to a cell phone and the school closing so that I can't get in extra study time, I've had the chance to catch up with a lot of my girlfriends, both military and civilian, this week. There's been a fascinating pattern in the relationships over the last few days - all of the boyfriends have done something remarkably (in some cases, Darwinally) stupid, and all of the husbands have done something really stellar for their wives. Another bit of late-night randomness was the brain's response to the entire species before I fell asleep: "Way to go, guys!! Fail."

*It's a little unusual, in our barracks, to have all three roommates of any room be in the same duty section. Usually, we're a little more spaced, so that we can get some breathing-time away from each other. To add to the confusion, all three of us have the same coloring and roughly the same build (traits I share with a friend down the hall, whose name is a homonym for one of the roomies). AND, the three of us are all within three weeks of each other in Apprentice Technical Training. The rest of the ship is very confused.