At the end of another long West Point day, I find myself reflecting back on the events of the day. This is not because I have tons of time to spend on such things (I really shouldn't be spending time on this either) but rather because I am too tired to think straight and my mind is racing too much to go to bed.
The day started out like any other, woke up at 0610, learned my plebe knowledge for the day (the day's meals and 2 news articles), shaved, etc. and got things set up for calling minutes (a process I'll have to describe later) which I am in charge of this week. Head out to formation and a SGT that lives next door asks if I am aware that no minutes have been called in our section of the building at all this week.
"No, Sergeant, I will take care of that, thank you for telling me."
So far so good. . .now just a test and my day should be mostly over. . .
I had the first 2 periods off today, and being the tired cadet that I am I slept 2 hours before going to my first class (one of the few good things of the day). Classes are dull, Fundamentals of Personal Fitness and History of Eastern Asia. Come back from class and lunch minutes are supposed to be getting called. Instead of minutes I hear my First Sergeant (1SG) yelling about how crappy the (lack of) minutes are and all of the upper-classmen confused as to what the uniform is.
"Crap, this could get ugly" I think as I head up to my room to ditch my stuff. Minutes are being called in my section of the barracks, so it must not be that bad, right? Announcements for lunch say something different. 1SG (in a rather ticked off tone):
"I need to see Bishop and his entire chain-of-command in the back immediately after formation"
I turn to my squad leader standing right behind me (who was, until today, impressed with me and giving me an 'A' for my military grade today, who knows what it is now) and he is looking at me like "WHAT DID YOU DO!" I knew what it was, and it was completely out of my control, not fair.
We all go to the back of formation, and my TAC (the officer in charge of our company) is standing there. Great, now I'm not only gonna get chewed out, but its going to happen in front of the TAC, this just keeps getting better. . .
Never before, and hopefully never again, have my face and 1SG's face been so close, or his voice so loud.
"What's the deal with minutes. . ." and he proceeds to rip on me for there not being minutes in his section of the building. Then he moves on to the lack of minutes in my own section for breakfasts. All I want to do is scream "I DIDN'T KNOW, I HAVEN'T HAD A CHANCE TO FIX IT, GET OFF MY BACK" but rather, I said "Yes 1SG" when he demanded that I turn over the names of those who had been messing up minutes.
After lunch I go take the huge test i spoke of earlier. Math. I discovered early on that EVERYTHING I studied the night before was left out of this test. Admittedly I still feel I did well-ish, but only time will tell. Come back from the test and take a nap? No, I was up so late the previously studying for the test (which helped none at all) that neglected to write a poem for english and shower. I did both of those and headed to class where I learned of 2 huge assignments for that class in the next week. Crap.
After school nap? Nope! Swim meet! We won 54 to 19, and I beat my coach in the butterfly and managed to finish the IM, so those were good, but I desperately needed sleep (and to throw up).
Go back to the barracks and sleep? Still no! Go back and meet with 1SG, shower, and sleep, that's the plan. After my shower, I checked Facebook really quick. Hey! a message! Mom is the only one that sends me messages on Facebook very often, so I figured I should read it then. Turns out that an old friend and neighbor died at 2 AM. Wow, can this day get better? Yes, it can, and does (thank you Murphy, the Army hates you). I got no sleep (still) and had to go call minutes for dinner.
After dinner (minutes went smoothly, Murphy can't mess with everything) I return to my room and try to work on stuff. No dice. Too tired. Can't keep my eyes open. A 20 minute nap!! Yay!! 20 minutes later I wake up to my Team Leader cracking the door open and TADA! time for us to chat. It was a good chat though. I finally finished (I hope) taking care of the minutes stuff. My homework that absolutely has to be done for tomorrow is done, and I'm hoping that after this my mind will have cleared enough to go to bed, we'll see.
Things get better, SAMI (Saturday morning inspection) and In-Ranks Inspection (uniform and rifle inspection) means NO SLEEP THIS WEEKEND!!! YAY!!! JUST WHAT I NEED!!!! What's more, while everyone is sleeping off the effects of being up until 3 or 4 in the morning scrubbing floors, I will have to be in the library trying to work on one of my millions of papers and projects coming up. But hey, spring is here, the grey period is gone, I get to see the sun almost every day now, so it could be worse!
