Rainy Day Thoughts
Well, we finally made it to another weekend. Even though my last weekend off was only 2 weeks ago, it feels much longer. That is mainly because days as the newest watch standing non-rate at my station are very long ones. Long as in, your only time off is the six hours you get to sleep. Give that as my typical workday, I’ve been very happy with the amount I’ve been able to write in the past couple weeks. Heaven knows there was plenty to write about.
2 More Weeks
Exactly two weeks in the future I will either be finishing lunch or standing in one of the many lines that typify the first 3 days of basic training. I meant to post a great deal about everything leading up to training, but getting everything done severely curtailed my ability to write. I am focused on cleaning up the apartment and packing many things for my first unit before I leave for boot camp. I only have 5 days from the end of training until I am due at my unit, and I do not want to spend them packing. I plan to spend those days getting married and seeing my family and friends again before moving off to who knows where.
In addition, I am studying as much of the required knowledge for basic training as I can before I go. I know I will retain the information better if I am not learning it in a stressful environment. So I am using flashcards (digital ones, that is) to learn the military alphabet, insignia and names of all the ranks, nautical terminology, and the 11 general orders for all military personnel. I know basic training will be difficult, and the less I have to worry about early on when stress is highest, the happier I will be.
Well, back to work. I have errands to run before I report to my tutoring job. That job ends tomorrow, and then my full attention can be given to preparation for training and the first move, and seeing family and friends. I’ll try to keep you all updated as things get closer.
The few weeks have been quiet ones, with little of consequence to report. I’ve started putting my teaching certification back to use as an SAT tutor, which provides a bit of income for the months ahead. My second go at the GRE exam didn’t raise my math score by as much as I wanted. Part of that was forgetting that I had no access to a calculator and struggling to gain my stride after that. I’m progressing with the scores I have for my Spring applications, but plan to retake once more for Fall applications should Spring not work out.
My application for American is in the hands of its amazing faculty, and I hope for a decision by the end of October. I’m currently working on my application for Rutgers, with City College of NY and NYU’s applications to follow. It will be a busy month.
On the class front, things are proceeding, although I have had to change my plans slightly. Rather than start my microeconomics class at MCC this past Wednesday, I will now take a more condensed class starting on the 22nd following some prolonged car trouble. (Apparently finding instrument panels for 1995 Fords isn’t the easiest thing to do.) The car comes home today, so that will solve the personal mobility problem.
Hopefully by the end of October or first week of November I have decisions from most schools (Rutgers, CCNY, and NYU all use rolling admissions; AU does not) and can decide where I would like to be in January. I’ll keep you all updated as there is more news to report. For now I have some Foreign Affairs articles to summarize and some notes on Inflation and the Phillips curve to take.
Update
I completely fell off the 365 bandwagon again. I’m going to start in September and just try to document a month, and build up from there. My life stalled out in general over the past several weeks. Months have dragged by with me trying to find a position that will pay the bills, with little luck. I had a lot of ups and downs, and I doubt I will continue to have them as long as I’m in this situation of being unemployed.
Nearly There
Life is finally about to get a bit simpler. Tomorrow the final episode of Issues: Season 1 finally goes live. If we go back to Gov. School when Scott brought me on board, I’ve been working on Issues for the last 7 or 8 months straight. Tunnel vision and frustration set in around month 4. (Not long after we wrapped the production phase.) We learned a lot in Season 1 that will make the next season (should we get the funding to make it happen) much smoother. For now, I’m just happy to be walking away from it for a while. It’s never healthy to overexpose yourself to a single project. Between my production class and my own ideas, looking forward to getting some very different projects up into Final Cut soon.
