Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Disney World

Four of my company-mates and I went to Disney World for Labor Day (three company-mates who were part of the plan and another who attached himself at the last minute). During AMT my roommate convinced me to set the trip up. Travel expenses were very low- we used mom and dad's timeshare for a place to stay and Disney is letting those with a military ID into the parks for free this year so the $200 airfare was the only major expense. I was quite reluctant to go through with the plan but in the end it was worth it.

Friday we flew to Orlando and got in late. $50 taxi ride from the airport to the timeshare where, rather than going to bed like sensible people, we ordered pizza (thank heaven for Papa John and his insomnia) and took our time getting settled in. Everyone was shocked when we walked into the place and they saw how huge it was- and they quickly grabbed cameras and took pictures of everything (I think we ended up with more pictures of the room than the parks). Got to bed about 1 or 2, can't really remember.

Saturday we got up and hit the parks- Magic Kingdom in the morning and Epcot in the afternoon. Mission Space and Big Thunder Mountain were the favorites of the group for the day and not much was seen of the different countries.

Sunday we hit up Typhoon Lagoon in the morning and headed to Downtown Disney in the afternoon. Pleasure Island has a movie theater and the weather was terrible so we decided to watch a movie. The first choice (through voting and time constraints) was Gamer but the theater messed up and was playing Aliens in the Attic in the auditorium that was supposed to be Gamer so we ended up going to Inglorious Bastards (name of the movie, don't comment on the language). I would not suggest that movie for anyone- too bloody. If you can find a version with less blood then watch and enjoy, but otherwise don't.

Monday we traveled back to West Point and resumed life as normal. Although it is never easy returning to this place, it is much less difficult now that we aren't plebes and have a little more freedom. Life returned to normal, classes the next day, and the next; didn't take long before everyone was back to living weekend to weekend and paycheck to paycheck. But hey, at least we're getting paid!

Not long ago Vo, the mastermind of it all, came into my room urging me to find another 3-day weekend and another fun vacation destination we can travel to for cheap. We'll see, I may have another story in a few months.

Blogger refuses to load the pictures so I will post them later.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

New Commandant of Cadets

The Comm is leaving tomorrow morning and will be missed greatly. BG Linnington has become one of my biggest role models in the short time I have been here, it is a sad thing to see him go. The Corps will be without a commandant until November (not certain how that works. . .) at which time BG William (Bill) Rapp will assume the post. He seems like a competent enough fellow but there is always apprehension and following in BG Linnington's shoes would be a daunting task for anyone.

BG Linnington will be deploying to Afghanistan Monday morning where he will be on staff for a joint operations unit.

Monday, September 21, 2009

School year so far. . .

The school year, aside from the first week-ish, is boring and there is rarely anything to write about. It is much nicer to not be a plebe and the amount of extra time I have from not doing duties, memorizing meals, days, etc. is shocking. This year is supposed to be the most intense academically but I seem to have settled into the same groove as in high school-get up, go to class, do absolutely nothing, stay up late still doing nothing, repeat and somehow manage to still get good grades. We'll see how long this pattern holds up, hopefully the whole semester. Having a plebe to take care of is great. I love taking care of people, helping friends with anything that is bothering them, etc. so having an individual who's problems are basically my problems is like a dream come true. I can't wait to graduate and have 40 of them! Though by that point, most of their problems will be taken care of before they get to me but it should still be great.

Speaking of my plebe- I wanted to die when I first got the name and looked it up on Facebook (don't laugh, that's the first thing you'd do with the name too). To understand why, you need to understand a few things about getting a plebe- the four things you do not want your plebe to be are:

1) Female- no offense to the ladies, you just tend to have more problems and are more difficult to deal with in general, especially after living surrounded by guys and losing your social skills.

2) Prior Service- if your plebe knows more about life/the Army than you do what are you supposed to teach them?

3) Prepster- someone from the prep. school. Often scum-bags (sorry to any prepsters who read this- you know its true though) though that is not the problem, it can be handy for your plebe to know how to get out of EVERYTHING. The problem is usually that they have already had a year of USMA type life and again, there's not much for you to teach them.

4) Corps Squad Athlete- Another stereo-type: corps squaders are shammers, think they are better than everyone else, etc. Basically its the whole jock thing from high-school. On top of all that, they have no time for you to be with them/teach them how to do things/make sure they have done things.

The first thing you do when you are given your plebe's name is look them up on Facebook to find out if they fit any of these categories. Also, if their profile is blocked it tells you they were smart enough to block it, if not then you can learn all sorts of things about them. Sounds creepy but the upper-classmen are doing it too so you might as well be able to prepare them for what they are going to get hazed about. . .

So I got my name, logged in to facebook and saw a tall-looking girl in ACU's. That can't be right. They wouldn't give me a girl would they?! Plus she's in ACU's, she must be a prepster! Possibly prior-service but thankfully she looks too young. I check the sheet again. AH! She's on the women's basketball team too!!! Sweet, this is going to be interesting. . .

The first day we spent a good amount of time getting to know each other while cleaning rifles. Turns out my female/prepster/corps squad plebe isn't too bad after all. Her whole goal for the semester is to make my life as easy as possible. So far she's done a pretty good job of it too!

Classes are going good. My schedule is 19.5 credit hours light. I picked my major- Computer Science. Looks like this is going to be my lightest semester by far between now and graduation. Great choice (sarcasm).

Lastly, a lead-in to what will probably be my next blog post. One thing I don't think I mentioned in my AMT post is that my roommate convinced me to get a room with my parents' time share and go to Disney World for Labor Day. More to come on that. . .

For the impatient ones

I have been rather slow about updating and telling y'all about my fun and exciting life but hey, if I'm constantly on here writing I don't have time for my life to be fun and exciting right? Anyway, I promised updates would be coming and the blog is slowly catching up to real life; as for the rest of what has been going on, patience and it will be on here eventually, I promise. Hopefully soon but no promise on that part.