Monday May 11, 2009
Today we got our service whites, dress blues and working uniforms tailored, looking sharp. After that we had some misc fun, in-house pictures taken with the RDC’s for our yearbook. We then got dressed into our dress blues and the females were allowed to put on a little make-up. We almost looked normal again.
While here we have very, very little time for ourselves. We barely have time to dress and use the restroom, shower **editor’s note, I have re-read this several times and I’m not sure what she means so I’m going to type as is**(undress, dress to PT gear, under gear, undress in the head, shower, dry redress into shorts/pt gear, then dress into our boots and utilities) has to be done in 15 minutes. We always are wearing our (sports bras, granny panties) (White T-shirts, white socks and shoes) PT/Nighttime undergear) – Utilities we we wear everyday – with the PT/Nighttime gear underneath. Yes, lots of layers, may pants are always stuffed.
No time for hair and we wear these huge, brown, super nerdy glasses (called BCG’s “birth control glasses”)
Anyways we got all dressed up and got our individual pictures taken. We really looked awesome our males looked really handsome.
After pictures we went to chow, did I say we eat a lot? OMG 3 full meals a day. I think I’ve gained weight.
After chow we studied for a bit. We have 2nd test tomorrow and it’s a ton of information.
Drill Time – time for our drill inspection, we’ve been working on this for weeks, basically since we got here. Everyone was really nervous because this one inspection is probably the biggest of all we have.
We march in ranks, all 68 of us, from the compartment about a mile to a big drill hall and we do all the ceremony that we will be doing at graduation. The entire thing takes about 1.5 hours, with chiefs and inspectors watching us and grading us the entire time. We did pretty good, got a 4.6 out of 5. We got our drill flag.
So now we’ve got our:
- Athletic Flag – for our PFA’s
- Scholastic Flags – for tests
- Star Flag – for our zone inspection
- (and now) Drill Flag
And these equal earning – Our Battle E Flag -
18 more days – but we are coming right along.
Those who slack, give up and are in general just lagging behind won’t make it past the next PFAs. (Some haven’t passed even 1 PFA – Personal Fitness Test yet). The next one is the final one and it is required to graduate. ASMO’s are coming, I bet we lose at least 3.
Ship Staff Meeting, after early chow at 1745. Ship Staff is every night and it takes me out of the division, into mix of 4-6 from 10 other divisions so Ship Staff is like another big division. During ship staff we break up into groups and clean the ship. I am on the office team and dust, collect trash, vacuum all the commanding officer’s offices, then I go to the RDC’s our all 10 divisions and have to announce and address them and properly request to get their recycling & shredding for the day. If you address them wrong you get your ass chewed out. Almost everyone else in Ship Staff is scared to death of the RDC’s but they don’t bother me. I’ve screwed up and I’ve been chewed out but they don’t dish is out to be personal attacks and I don’t take it personally.
** I think Leigh was either writing quickly or extremely tired b/c this particular journal was hard to type. Usually I can figure out what she’s trying to say and edit it for her but I really am lost. Ya’ll figure it out!**
