Back up to speed.

Oh yeah! This little darlin' is still kicking around!

All right, so my internet use has been rather sporadic due to the last third of my program being Radar. So, what have I been up to in the last month?

Accelerated electronics program, mostly. When I have time, I PT, but that's not nearly as often as I'd like. Hopefully with the coming graduation, more time will free up.

Personally, I doubt it. The way I live, free time never stays free - it's a vacuum. "Hey! There's space here! I can put something in there!" It's a good life, though. :)

Also, I jumped in a lake! There are photos on Facebook - a hole was cut next to the boat docks. Lake Michigan is frozen right up to shore. I've a friend from California - he's been stationed in Iraq, Japan, and Hawaii, and has no intentions of passing this way again - who agreed to take the plunge with me. I'm more impressed with him, really - for me, this wasn't that cold, just a lot of fun.

I saw Tangled with a few friends - yes, ladies, there are in fact straight guys out there who like Disney movies. Few of them will admit it in the first three months after you meet. It was a good time. This might be my new favorite Disney movie.

At some point in the last four weeks, I actually had time to SIT DOWN and watch a movie (this was probably during a massive two-day blizzard that shut down the whole base). In light of two of my friends receiving orders to Hawaii, Lilo and Stitch seemed appropriate. Crazy thing - if you only have time to watch one movie in a month, that movie will be playing in your head for the REST of that month. And people wonder why I don't watch the stupid ones.

Aside from those, my immediate friends (especially a soldier who gets out in April) can tell you that I've been riding a roller coaster of stress going through various radars. Originally, all of us (myself included) were trying to figure out the best way to keep me calm and happy - and then I realized that all of my best test scores were the tests when I was freaking out and terrified. Apparently I do well under pressure, in a sort of sideways fashion.

The fun thing, looking back, is the final lab. Up to this point, we worked with a particular radar receiver, or a certain display, or a radar switchboard, with some variation. The final lab combines everything into one system, and once again sends the student out to figure out how it's broken and what to replace. But, each of these individual components that had us brain-wracking in the days before, we simply blink that this one is part of the system. The display was the most interesting - the original display module was supposed to be the big mountain for all of us to hurdle, and I think we did lose some people over it. In the systems lab, thanks to everything we went through on that display, we now know exactly what to expect from it, and there's no problem that it's included.

There are other problems with that lab, of course, but I've taken that, "Do not pray for easy lives," business to heart. :) Also, interesting note, apparently I talk to my electronics without realizing it. One of my lab buddies overheard me (I was puzzled with my switchboard) quietly mutter, "Come on, baby, don't do this now." We're entertained.

But, barring unforeseen cataclysm, or a petty officer having a really bad day, I graduate tomorrow. I'll describe the next adventures as they come. :)