Hard Charging Motivator

Believe it or not, but I don't have a single new picture to post. Everyday my camera just sat on my kitchen counter. It sat there as if it was looking at me, and every morning I would look at it and fly through the ensuing day to calculate if I would need it or not, but the day was always boring enough for me to decide against bringing it. I'm not saying my week was boring, but it was just not as photogenic as most other weeks.

Today was Sunday. For the first time since I can remember I honored our day of rest respectfully by taking a nap. I could have easily slept well into the night, but I had to wake up and write this blog, iron my uniform, and pack my lunch for tomorrow. Shouldn't take too long except I'll probably get caught up in facebook, end up skyping someone, and wanting to read and/or study. Either way this nap felt really good, and I really truly do love my bed.

My weekend wasn't that boring though. Friday night Darryl and I went to watch Avatar. Since I first heard about this movie I silently laughed inside about it. No way did I think it sounded good, looked good, and consequently I never bothered to factor in time watch it. Then I listened to the Court of Public Opinion. When it only made 2 million less the second weekend than the opening weekend the People have spoken, it was worth seeing. Folks all over the clinic were talking about it, and I finally bent to go see it. As my Work Center Supervisor, mentor, and friend HM2 Oldenburg said, "it will be one of the better decisions you will make all week to see this movie." He was so right. I was very impressed with the movie. Everything amazed me, and I was watching the 2D version! It was one of the real rare movies where I was so captivated and into it, I would flinch at fight scenes and I actually cheered out loud when the protagonist became victor. It really drew a reaction from me which is one of the staple requirements to deciding if a movie is good or not.

Of course every movie succeeding Avatar will be second-best at best. I followed it up with "Inglorious Basterds." I was not impressed at all. I think "Pulp Fiction" will be the only Queintin Tarentino movie I'll ever like. Maybe I walked into this movie with different expectations, but his dialouge was too long-winded for me, he took too many factual liberties at the climax, and as good as Brad Pitt was even he couldn't save the whole movie. I had to give it a thumbs down.

My third movie of the weekend was "Jennifer's Body." It is the new Megan Fox movie. That is the only reason why I picked it up in the first place, but let it be known I watched it twice, the first and last time.

This past week really forced me to learn time management. With advancement training, physical training, my job, swim club, and the basic wear'n'tears of living I have been extremely busy. This next week won't be much better since I'm now throwing MWR basketball coaching on top of the fire. Luckily I won't be a head coach this season, just an assistant, but I still have to be there for all practices and games. Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining, it actually just what I wanted. I want to be as busy as possible to keep my mind off of missing home. A sacrafice will probably be poorer communication back home, but I want everyone to know I'm thinking about everyone, and more letters home mean more time on my hands. That is good and bad.

As we know I'm doing the Stew Smith online PT Club program. For a 12 week course I pay $200 and he sends me individual workouts, I am given his personal email/cellphone, and he is always very quick to reply. This is good, except this next week's workout will maybe kill me. These next 12 weeks (because last week was week "0") will probably rival some of swimmings hardest. Lots of dryland, some pool, but holy shit is there a lot of running, and he wants it timed too! My diet of smaller but more frequent meals is going great too. I eat 5 small meals throughout the day. Last Monday I weighed myself at 244lbs, and at the end of my last workout on Friday I weighed 236lbs. I doubt that was 8lbs of water weight either. I drink about 140 ounces of water a day.

Like mentioned above there is advancement training. Our advancement exam is in March, and we have classes Monday-Friday for about one hour to help us group study. I am attending. In fact I'm teaching 3 classes this month. You could say I'm awesome like that! Picking up 2nd class my first attempt is quite an uphill goal, but it isn't impossible. Time will tell on this one though. The harder you work, the luckier you get and failure to prepare is preparing to fail.

Ah yes, my job. First I will tell you that this past Wednesday I was lucky enough to be INVITED by the EOD senior chief to visit the locker. I believe I talked about in the last post how we were sitting next to each other at dinner and we got to talking. Well, he remembered me when he was visiting the clinic later that week. So I went, and things sound very encouraging for me. They were leaving to go somewhere they couldn't tell me (badass), but were going to be back in late Febuary. In that time I should get things in order regarding my package, etc which is already in full-swing. They made the process sound very easy and fast to submit a package. It was a good visit.

Well, fast-forward to Friday. I'm on my 72 hour special liberty for my PRT success, and I'm in the clinic because I feel weird when I'm not there talking to Dr. Margraf about PT and EOD. Chief Bennett, my LCPO, comes looking for me. It was an informal talk, but he asked me if I didn't want to be a pharmacy tech anymore. I told him I didn't, and he said that other people or noticing that, and he asked me how I felt about that. I told him that they should know that I don't want to be tech anymore, but they shouldn't have to notice it in my work. He agreed and told me to work on that. I told him I'm glad he knows I'm working on taking the steps to not be a pharmacy tech anymore, and I'll fix myself. The moral to this story is I have been slipping up at work making mistakes I shouldn't normally make, and leadership is noticing. The biggest reason for this is in fact I have my head somewhere else, but thanks to Chief's talk I will get my head out of the clouds/my ass and remember the facts that right now I am a pharmacy tech and I should act like it.

Due to all this excitment I will be not going to school this semester. Some things had to be cut, and education was one of them. Sounds really messed up, right? Hear me out, I have my reasons. My parent command, Naval Hospital Yokosuka, has altered the way they are doing tuition assistance. This was halfway through me routing my chit which was done the normal way. My chit was sent back to me. It was the holiday season. People went on leave, my department head had a kid and went on leave for that, and the bottom line was there was a lot of red tape. Chits are being signed off by one person, the CMC. Classes start in 14 days. To get everything routed up again and play the waiting game, just isn't worth it to me. College classes will always be there. The current projects talked about above won't. I'm sure I'm breaking Mom's heart if she reads this, but she needs to understand that I think I'm doing just alright without taking introduction to biology right now. I have other projects I am ranking more important right now. There are obtainable goals that need more of my time that can be knocked out faster, for example my outstanding voluteer medal. My change in career package, advancement training. A ph.d who is an E5 (my pay grade) makes the same as the GED drop out E5. For the time being I'll be the navy's bitch for another 5 years at least.

Alright, time for me to wrap this up. It was a good talk. Morale is up though I worked myself up in that last paragraph (cause I know I'm going to get shit for it), but that is okay. I'll talk to everyone later!