Soooo, now I am already through week 2, and still haven’t posted from week 1, which means you all get a double post to read (if you so choose). Week two had its ups and downs. Over the weekend I got a chance to organize myself and breath. I really needed that to figure out what had just happened the week before. Sunday I went to church here on base. About 6 people from my flight came too. It was a contemporary-ish service, so the familiar songs were nice. Just being in that environment and being able to relax and talk and sing was fantastic. They had us stay for COFFEEEEEEE and donuts afterwards and talked about Christian activities/groups in the Air force and what we can find on base. It was a good relaxer to help me reset for the next week.
Thanks to Memorial day, we actually had a three day weekend, which was filled with meetings, testing, studying, marching, and studying. I ran a 5k on Monday morning and felt pretty proud about that. Tuesday we had PT in the morning, during which I ran another 3.25 miles. Then it was pretty much classes all day. With very little sleep, very filling meals, and no coffee, I (and everyone else here) have such a hard time staying awake in lecture. It’s so hard! During lectures they tell you to stand up in the back if you are falling asleep (they encourage it), but I can’t bring myself to crawl over everyone in the lecture hall to do it. So I just get poked by my fellow flight mates. Sidenote - Classes are either held as a full group in the auditorium or with our flights in the classroom, by the way.
Wednesday we were suppose to have a ceremony and get our ‘driver’s license’ so we can march without an instructor, but they thought we weren’t ready (as a whole) so that got pushed back to Friday. People are lazy here, for instance when you walk down halls you are suppose to be single file, hands cupped and not talking. That’s not that hard to accomplish, but people don’t do it. And it’s the little things like that that keep us from moving up in the world here. Anyway, Wednesday was PT strength training in the morning. A variety of push-ups, sit ups, jumping, planks (holding yourself up at elbow height in push-up like position, kind of like torture), and other such activities. We got done and I was like “whew, I did everything.” Then they made us do the whole set three more times. Sigh, yes I still did it all. Then classes allllllllllllll day. I was flight leader again that day, and it was a little better. Someone said leading the flight was like playing a video game, trying to get everything aimed right. I tried to keep that in mind as I ran my flight into the grass a couple of time since I’m too short to see where to turn them. Another side note, our flight commander asked if anyone didn’t like football, and I raised my hand, because I don’t. So for my sake he makes occasional baseball references. That day he told me I was hitting some things out of the park and other things I was just striking out at. It kind of made me smile (not the striking out, just the baseball thing). He told me the flight doesn’t always trust my calls because I don’t trust myself and the only way to fix that is to have confidence in
my abilities and make it clear to others that I am in charge. Good advice.
Thursday was running for PT, 45 minutes of jogging the corners of the track then sprinting the straight ways. I had a fellow flightmate with me keeping me motivated, so we were able to keep up a good pace. We had a field leadership thing in which we were broken into small groups and given scenarios to complete in a certain time limit. Like getting across a lake of acid, or scaling a falling apart house in a mine field. I can’t talk to much about it in case future COT-ers stumble across this. You know, it’s suppose to be secret and where would be the fun if I gave it away? Then classes. Oh we got to eat MRE’s again for breakfast. Always a fun experience.
Friday, MREs for breakfast again, then onto the assault course! That was a blast. We had about 16 obstacles to get through, like crawling thru the sand under wires, climbing a rope ladder thing and rolling across the top and climbing down, jumping over walls, pulling myself across a rope bridge, and so on. Lots of fun and we were the first ones done. Definitely the highlight of my time here so far. Then most of the afternoon was given to us to study for the test on Monday. We did have the ceremony to get our drivers license so we can officially march alone now. The ceremony gave us all a lot of pride, I think, and our flight commander actually gave us a nice little peptalk, which meant a lot coming from him since he is usually very disapproving seeming. I think he secretly likes us though. :)
Like I mentioned, we are the “Foxtrot Fuzziee Wookiees”, our chant is as follows:
Fuzzy fury bold and brave
There’s no place you will be safe
Towering high your fate it grim
Wookiees tear you limb from limb
Fuzzy fury tried and true
Ticks us off no good for you
Force can’t save you from our rage
Wookiees cannot be contained
(Wookiee roarrrrr)
Thanks to Memorial day, we actually had a three day weekend, which was filled with meetings, testing, studying, marching, and studying. I ran a 5k on Monday morning and felt pretty proud about that. Tuesday we had PT in the morning, during which I ran another 3.25 miles. Then it was pretty much classes all day. With very little sleep, very filling meals, and no coffee, I (and everyone else here) have such a hard time staying awake in lecture. It’s so hard! During lectures they tell you to stand up in the back if you are falling asleep (they encourage it), but I can’t bring myself to crawl over everyone in the lecture hall to do it. So I just get poked by my fellow flight mates. Sidenote - Classes are either held as a full group in the auditorium or with our flights in the classroom, by the way.
Wednesday we were suppose to have a ceremony and get our ‘driver’s license’ so we can march without an instructor, but they thought we weren’t ready (as a whole) so that got pushed back to Friday. People are lazy here, for instance when you walk down halls you are suppose to be single file, hands cupped and not talking. That’s not that hard to accomplish, but people don’t do it. And it’s the little things like that that keep us from moving up in the world here. Anyway, Wednesday was PT strength training in the morning. A variety of push-ups, sit ups, jumping, planks (holding yourself up at elbow height in push-up like position, kind of like torture), and other such activities. We got done and I was like “whew, I did everything.” Then they made us do the whole set three more times. Sigh, yes I still did it all. Then classes allllllllllllll day. I was flight leader again that day, and it was a little better. Someone said leading the flight was like playing a video game, trying to get everything aimed right. I tried to keep that in mind as I ran my flight into the grass a couple of time since I’m too short to see where to turn them. Another side note, our flight commander asked if anyone didn’t like football, and I raised my hand, because I don’t. So for my sake he makes occasional baseball references. That day he told me I was hitting some things out of the park and other things I was just striking out at. It kind of made me smile (not the striking out, just the baseball thing). He told me the flight doesn’t always trust my calls because I don’t trust myself and the only way to fix that is to have confidence in
my abilities and make it clear to others that I am in charge. Good advice.
Thursday was running for PT, 45 minutes of jogging the corners of the track then sprinting the straight ways. I had a fellow flightmate with me keeping me motivated, so we were able to keep up a good pace. We had a field leadership thing in which we were broken into small groups and given scenarios to complete in a certain time limit. Like getting across a lake of acid, or scaling a falling apart house in a mine field. I can’t talk to much about it in case future COT-ers stumble across this. You know, it’s suppose to be secret and where would be the fun if I gave it away? Then classes. Oh we got to eat MRE’s again for breakfast. Always a fun experience.
Friday, MREs for breakfast again, then onto the assault course! That was a blast. We had about 16 obstacles to get through, like crawling thru the sand under wires, climbing a rope ladder thing and rolling across the top and climbing down, jumping over walls, pulling myself across a rope bridge, and so on. Lots of fun and we were the first ones done. Definitely the highlight of my time here so far. Then most of the afternoon was given to us to study for the test on Monday. We did have the ceremony to get our drivers license so we can officially march alone now. The ceremony gave us all a lot of pride, I think, and our flight commander actually gave us a nice little peptalk, which meant a lot coming from him since he is usually very disapproving seeming. I think he secretly likes us though. :)
Like I mentioned, we are the “Foxtrot Fuzziee Wookiees”, our chant is as follows:
Fuzzy fury bold and brave
There’s no place you will be safe
Towering high your fate it grim
Wookiees tear you limb from limb
Fuzzy fury tried and true
Ticks us off no good for you
Force can’t save you from our rage
Wookiees cannot be contained
(Wookiee roarrrrr)
(pic = my flight in PT gear, waiting for lunch)Our flight commander says we sound like a bunch of pigeons when we do our roar.
And while I’m at it, our Squadron (the Falcons) chant is:
Falcons hunt from on high,
Diving down from the sky.
Ripping flesh with our talons,
Drawing blood by the gallons.
FALCONS!
Death from above!!
With a hundred people yelling that, it gets pretty loud. :)
So that’s life at the moment. Only three weeks to go. I am still having lots of ups and downs, but this week was better, at least less stressful/scary. My roommate here is great, I really enjoy her company and value the few minutes we can actually talk like normal people at night. I will be happy to be done here for sure, but that brings on new thoughts about life at my next base and what that will be like.
But no time to reflect on that, I’ve got some studying to do. Only three weeks to go!
Miss you all!!
I love your wookie song.
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