It's 0147, and I'm at the clinic standing duty. There are some things to hit on the blog, first round of March Madness playing on the TV here, and a good duty crew to be working with.
Let's kick off with the NCAA basketball tournament. This is the first year I think since high school I actually put money on my bracket. The way the first round has gone so far, I think it's a sign to never bet on sports again. About half my picks are busted. I should just go back to the days of filling out a bracket for fun and ALWAYS (unless they're playing the Badgers of course) pull for the underdog no matter what I have on paper. All this complaining aside, there have been some very exciting games so far. I wish I had TV at my apartment so I could watch the games at home. Oh well, that's what the Internet is for, right?!
Earlier this week was St. Patrick's Day. I had a glass of wine. I've taken a liking to shiraz, and one glass an evening. Makes me feel more responsible and mature! Sounds weird, but I think I see myself when I'm older, much further down the road listening to the jazz station in the car. Having a glass of wine a night, sitting in front of the fire in a den, reading a book is a place where I want to be someday in my life. For now though, it's at my counter where the computer is set-up, or my writing desk.
Also, on St. Paddy's day, I cooked Hamburger Helper for the first time in my life! You could say I'm very proud of this accomplishment. In fact I called my Mom when she was at work to tell her about it. She asked if "I'm a master of the craft, or the craft is a master of me." I love my mother, as we all know, and she can whip up some "dog food" without looking at the instructions with her eyes closed. Not me, I was definitely a novice, and still in a student-status. It is an art to be perfected, and I took mental notes along the way. So in other words, I'm starting to actually cook and use my stove, and it's all very motivating.
Believe it or not, but a girl asked for my phone number! She is off one of the ships, and we have been kinda flirting for her past couple of visits. I won't go into the details, but her name is Nicole, and she reminds me of Kirsten Dunst. Who knows, but it pretty much made my day. These things don't happen that often anymore.
Time to explain my post title. Here in the Hurt Locker, aka pharmacy, the enlisted side keeps up morale anytime we can. This is where/why everything is "motivating" derived from. Well, we also have certain phrases/nicknames for officers, needy patients, and awesome patients. For example, when our pharmacist had his son, in the card that the clinic sent him, a doctor, LT Doyle, wrote "strong work," and none of us knew what the Hell she meant/heard that phrase before. Well, that phrase caught on like wild fire, and it's now used the all the time around the clinic, but especially the pharmacy. LT Doyle is awesome now that we are on the subject. She is from Oxford, Mississippi, and a true southerner. Her heart is made of gold, a true nice person. Her other catch-phrase is "bless your heart." Whenever patients can't remember the name of the doctor they just saw (which is something I always find sad and embarrassing), we ask them, "did they bless your heart?" If they reply "yes" then we know who they are talking about.
LT Doyle isn't the only provider who is known for her lines. LT Margraf has a couple of legend himself. He calls everybody "partner" if he likes them. Again if the patient can't remember the name of who they just saw, we ask, "was your doctor, short, balding, glasses, called you partner?" After they process what we asked, they usually go, "yeah...yeah he did call me partner." If they tell us he didn't call them partner, that generally means they'll be prescribed motrin and flexeril. Dr. Margraf is also called "the good lieutenant." He is the former Army Ranger who I've written semi-extensively in previous posts, and he is a total badass. His legend could deserve its own post. Someday I'll post a picture of him.
We also have a Colombian-born doctor, Dr. Gomez-Sanchez, whom is known at "the dirty dirty" in the Hurt Locker. Our LCPO is known as "The Good Chief." OIC is "Big Mike", nurses are called by their first name, and if you are not liked or hated then you will have "fearless" put in front of your title, and you don't get a name. For example, our LPO is simply known as "our fearless LPO," and it is known throughout the pharmacy and other ancillary department who we are referring to. Our pharmacist is a little different. He is an anomoly. Some days he is known by his first name, others as LT, some situations he has "fearless" in front of his name, but most of the time we just call him "Quach" (his last name).
Some patients are legendary. There was this patient who was seemingly waiting in the pharmacy waiting area/lobby for 3 straight days. By the third day obtained the title of "Keeper of the lobby" and he was into it! He facilitated who was next in line and really ran the show. We would ask, "Keeper! Who we got next?" This guy would actually tell us who was due to be seen by us. No numbers were taken when The Keeper was in town. After he left his legend just exploded, whenever asshole patients were being difficult, or some sort of other situation arose, we would joke that we will just have to send the Keeper on them to set them straight. Same thing with our OIC, Commander Service, aka Big Mike. We are confident there is nothing he can't do, and has more power than paygrades above him.
That is about it for now when it comes to patients. There is one customer who we nicknamed "Bozo the Clown" of how he looks, and a patient is named "Deathrage" because her name is Deathridge" and she looks like she could destroy anyone in the pharmacy if she put her mind to it. Oldenburg literally feels scared when she comes to the window. Of course these are patients who we see often and know by name. Usually it's for medications that could be bought over-the-counter at the store, but they insist they be seen by a doctor, aka wastes valuable appointment time. Then there are those patients that individually irk the techs for one reason or another. They are our personal favorites and we call them "your boy." When this one LT is spotted in the pharmacy, the other techs always tell me that "my boy" is here, and it is known they're talking about a certain person. That goes for other patients with the other techs as well. As I said to begin this conversation, we will do anything to keep our morale up, and labeling individuals is one of those things.
HM2 Oldenburg is back from leave, and we are happy about this. It's nice to have our leader back and takes some stress off our shoulders. While he was gone LT Quach had a bad problem of micro-managing us, but also forced him to trust Garcia and I a little more. I think we impressed him cause I will be working in Hario by myself for the first time in a month or so this coming Monday. Either way, when the 3 of us are together (Garcia, Oldenburg, and myself) are working together is when the Hurt Locker is running the smoothest. All 3 of us have our strengths and weaknesses, but we also all 3 compliment those so well. I will go out on limb and say this is my favorite working team I've been apart of.
Garcia had his mock PRT last Friday, and to say he failed his run is an understatement. He really mucked it up. This causes problems. Not only is he a junior rank to me, but he is also in my department. Because I'm a more gifted PT-er than him (aka I work at my fitness a lot more than the average bear) I feel obligated to take him under my wing and give him the proper guidance needed to pass his PRT. Let's not beat around the bush, Garcia's run time has been the laughing stock of the Command Fitness Leaders (CFLs), and I take that a little personal since Garcia is my boy. So Garcia and I have been running during the week, but Garcia likes to go up to Fukuoka and party on the weekends. Those habits during the those trips really add up, and he needs to readjust his priorities. The trouble is Garcia isn't seeing the seriousness of his situation. I don't want to, but I think I'm going to have to play hardball with him and ORDER him not to go to Fuk on the weekends. It's not like I'm not out there running with him (after he gets done with his run, then I go out and do my PT). He will not like this, but I'm doing this for his own good. Hopefully he will see the light in May when he passes his PRT and doesn't put his career in jeapordy. I just wish he dedicates himself to passing first, and partying later. I have my own goals and career plans I need to work on myself, but I'm taking time away from those plans to help him, and I hope he sees that. Luckily I have the support of my chain of command, especially the Good Chief and Oldenburg.
I did back-to-back PRTs in consecutive Fridays. The first Friday I swam the PRT and scored an outstanding-high with a time of 6:19. The second Friday I wanted to see what my run was, and I set a personal best at 10:43. This past Friday I finised 6th in the clinic 3km run at 13:20. I think things are coming along for my April 1st PST with the EOD locker. Either put-out or get-out, right?
Last weekend I picked up recliner from the pharmacy's first class, HM1 Martinez. Since the chair has been in my home, I have sat in it once for about 30 minutes. I've been that busy. When I get home during the week, I'm maybe awake for an hour, but during that time I'm making dinner, at my computer, and making the next day's lunch.
A blog post would not be complete without an update on the swim team. I have made a bet with one of the parents. I will have to get our swim caps in faster than she can get the swim-suits in. If I lose the bet, I will have to give a powerpoint presentation to the command at our next training day on how to use perfume properly, and if Tara loses, she will have to swim with the team for a practice. On my side at least, we are making some real progress with the swim caps. More to come on that.
Oh, took the 2nd class advancement exam. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be more adminstration, but it wasn't. Results come out in May. There is wishful thinking on this one, but the reality is I have no award points, no time in rate, and only a MP evaluation to go with my test.
That's it for now. It's been real, and I'll holler back another time. Morale is high and I sign off now. HM3 sends.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Peaceful Easy Feelings
Imagine this, I'm on duty... AGAIN! That's fine though because standing watch gives me time to write these blogs. My days are so crammed packed with other things to do this is a good break believe it or not. It's almost like a holiday from real. Instead of being a whore to every other obligation I have throughout the week, watch gives me a time to step back and place catch-up on other things. I suppose if I were a health provider here at the clinic, this would be my "admin" time. A couple of cards were written, and now my blog. In the past when this blog was just beginning I was rather dedicated to knocking out a post every Sunday, but as my schedule became increasingly fuller, I wanted to do less to please other people on the weekends. I hope that makes sense. If I'm going to be stuck here in the middle of the night, and if I don't have any good pictures to post, then this is easily the best time and appease to everyone back home. Don't get me wrong, I still like doing this, but I'm tailoring this blog to better fit my own schedule instead of doing what's best for other people.
Lately I've been really brain-storming that screenplay I'll be writing to get my Oscar nomination. I'm stuck inbetween two stories, "Wonewoc County" and "What is Feared the Most." Somehow I think I can combine the two stories revolving around my two characters, Michael Centrali and Cory Weber. Time will tell, I have the rest of my life to get the job done, but I actually have jotted actual lines on paper. It's all motivating and fun to daydream about when I'm beginning to feel bored. Though since I've been in the navy I can say that I am never actually bored. There is something always needed to be done. This is good, but am I talking about life in the navy or just being an adult? This I can't say for certain, but there is never a day I think to myself "gee, there is NOTHING to do!" Something can always be done that I'd be able to label as productive.
Swim team is continuing to develop. As I'm sure we have talked about, our name is now officially the Sasebo Riptide and our colors are blue/gold. For those of you who don't get the joke, Baraboo's club team is called the Riptide, and they share the same colors. We chose Riptide though because of the obvious water reference, but also it's close proximity to the ocean. Blue and gold are the colors of the navy as well, and as we continue to develop a better competition schedule with Japanese community teams, we will want to display that naval pride, hoo-yah. This Friday I have invited the clinic to game of water polo against the swim team. I feel confident we will be competitive. The AFN piece went well too, though I was never interviewed. I thought they'd come back another day to get more footage, but they never did. Kristoph said everything I would have, and that's why we're such a good team. We're now starting to incorporate more dryland into our practices as well, which the team love/hates. Also, we have assigned American swimmers for the kids to write a 500 word paper on. On top of that, if they come to the pool early, I have made them do their homework, and we have study tables before practice. They really don't like me for that, but hopefully they will see the upside of that down the road. It was a nice thing one day when another gym patron was seeing this, and he caught me in the stairwell and he expressed his praises that we do this. Kristoph and I do not get a penny for what we do, and outside of our work schedules, swim club is our number one priority. I'm very happy with what is happening.
EOD took a minor step backwards actually. I did an official PST with the EOD locker, and I did not score the greatest. There are a couple of reasons why that would be, but those would just be excuses I'd rather not share only because excuses are like assholes, and they don't get anywhere. I go to the pool every morning to work on snorkeling, combat side stroke, and swimming without goggles, and my afternoons are spent running, calestenics, and more cardio. My next PST is on 01APR2010. Hopefully I will score a little better and be less of an embarrassement. A lot of what happened last time was mental, and I failed to adapt and overcome once I got behind the 8-ball. Now that I that I have a better idea what they expect from me I can only hope to perform better.
As a result from my April 1st PST, I have been a good boy and not gone out to the bars. This is a good money saver, and I feel a lot better in the mornings, obviously. This past Sunday I was off-going duty and instead of crawling back into bed I went out and ran about 8.6km, or 5.3 miles. It was a great day to start off the morning and I look forward to doing more of that. In order to get up early in the mornings on the weekends though, I need to start cutting back on my movie watching. Because I have no obligations to anyone else on the weekends, I feel entitled to stay up late and exercise my rebel without a clause routine. There is a couple of books I need to finish reading/get around to reading, and since I'm a bad multi-tasker the way it is, I need to budget my time a little smarter.
Our work center supervisor, HM2 (Brian) Oldenburg is home in New York on leave with his wife and mother-in-law for 10 day (7 business days). Oldenburg is probably my biggest mentor and one who I consider a friend here at the clinic. His absence is clearly felt, but the Hurt Locker is holding up. Upon his request I send him daily play-by-play color commentary of the days. HN Garcia and I are very loyal to him, and we just make a great team. We all get along and when we're all together it's like a fine oiled machine. Our pharmacist, LT Quach probably misses him more than I do, but that's only because he is worried about Garcia and I messing up/Oldenburg is our supply guy. Garcia is being trained to take over supply, but HM2 is the mastermind behind the pharmacy, and he makes LT's job very easy. I think that's all I got to say about that.
I'm sure I'll talk about it in my next post, but this will be the third consecutive St. Paddy's Day I have to miss out on. Two years ago I was in boot camp, and the only celebrating I did was eat a green-sugar cookie in the shape of a clover, and last year I was recovering from my appendectomy. This year a) I am in a country that doesn't give two shits about the Irish and it's drunken culture, and b) I'm on-call next week for pharmacy, so I have to stay sober. Plus the holiday is on a Wednesday, and who wants to come into work hung over? Well, I wouldn't be writing that 4-5 years ago, but it's funny how things change.
Coming home on leave is still looking good. There were tiny mumbles that they would be sending over humanitarian help of the Chiliean earthquake victims, but those rumors quickly died down. I'm now a little jumbled on the dates though. I have a couple of things I still need to work out as to when I'm exactly coming home (G14 classified as to what those plans are at the moment, or at least a need-to-know basis). Either way, I'm excited to come home, and party arrangements are being made on the dates I know for sure when I'm coming home. I've been to talking to Rich for sure every weekend getting updates on the wedding. It's all very motivating.
Now for the post title. I was writing to a friend tonight actually about how my life is on cruise-control, and how that is a good feeling. Everything is going smooth these past few weeks. Getting work done in the pharmacy, working out, swim club, and enjoying the solitude of my home. Last weekend I bought a patio set which puts my furniture collection almost at a completed status. I'm still getting around to a kitchen table, and after that I will be hosting my house-warming party. I've been living out in town since OCTOBER!! Anyway, it's nice having a better sense of patience. My Japan experiment is almost complete...I'm ready to come home...sigh* 13 more months. Unless you believe in miracles. Now I just need to get out of debt (which is coming along steadily and surely).
On Thursday I am taking the 2nd class petty officer exam. Though I earned a MP (must promote) , I am not being very optimistic on my chances. I don't have many other earned points, and my time in rate is pretty low. Plus, it could potentially hurt my EOD package. Though it would be nice to earn more money, if I were to cross-rate, I would still be a 2nd class as an EOD. That would not be very good being a brand-new EOD, assuming those responsibilites and leadership in a completely new field of work. The EOD community would like to tak it's new recruits as a young and naieve as possible. Get me right, I'm not going to purposely fail my corpsment exam, but if for some celestrial chance I do pick up rank, it could potentially make things more interesting, and not in a good way.
That's about it for now. Last week I recieved the longest letter I have EVER gotten, 7-pages! Thank you Katie. Extremely motivating, and despite being her first letter since 7th grade it didn't leave me unimpressed. A rebuttal was in the mail the next day. Morale is high, and it's time for me to surf the net.
Lately I've been really brain-storming that screenplay I'll be writing to get my Oscar nomination. I'm stuck inbetween two stories, "Wonewoc County" and "What is Feared the Most." Somehow I think I can combine the two stories revolving around my two characters, Michael Centrali and Cory Weber. Time will tell, I have the rest of my life to get the job done, but I actually have jotted actual lines on paper. It's all motivating and fun to daydream about when I'm beginning to feel bored. Though since I've been in the navy I can say that I am never actually bored. There is something always needed to be done. This is good, but am I talking about life in the navy or just being an adult? This I can't say for certain, but there is never a day I think to myself "gee, there is NOTHING to do!" Something can always be done that I'd be able to label as productive.
Swim team is continuing to develop. As I'm sure we have talked about, our name is now officially the Sasebo Riptide and our colors are blue/gold. For those of you who don't get the joke, Baraboo's club team is called the Riptide, and they share the same colors. We chose Riptide though because of the obvious water reference, but also it's close proximity to the ocean. Blue and gold are the colors of the navy as well, and as we continue to develop a better competition schedule with Japanese community teams, we will want to display that naval pride, hoo-yah. This Friday I have invited the clinic to game of water polo against the swim team. I feel confident we will be competitive. The AFN piece went well too, though I was never interviewed. I thought they'd come back another day to get more footage, but they never did. Kristoph said everything I would have, and that's why we're such a good team. We're now starting to incorporate more dryland into our practices as well, which the team love/hates. Also, we have assigned American swimmers for the kids to write a 500 word paper on. On top of that, if they come to the pool early, I have made them do their homework, and we have study tables before practice. They really don't like me for that, but hopefully they will see the upside of that down the road. It was a nice thing one day when another gym patron was seeing this, and he caught me in the stairwell and he expressed his praises that we do this. Kristoph and I do not get a penny for what we do, and outside of our work schedules, swim club is our number one priority. I'm very happy with what is happening.
EOD took a minor step backwards actually. I did an official PST with the EOD locker, and I did not score the greatest. There are a couple of reasons why that would be, but those would just be excuses I'd rather not share only because excuses are like assholes, and they don't get anywhere. I go to the pool every morning to work on snorkeling, combat side stroke, and swimming without goggles, and my afternoons are spent running, calestenics, and more cardio. My next PST is on 01APR2010. Hopefully I will score a little better and be less of an embarrassement. A lot of what happened last time was mental, and I failed to adapt and overcome once I got behind the 8-ball. Now that I that I have a better idea what they expect from me I can only hope to perform better.
As a result from my April 1st PST, I have been a good boy and not gone out to the bars. This is a good money saver, and I feel a lot better in the mornings, obviously. This past Sunday I was off-going duty and instead of crawling back into bed I went out and ran about 8.6km, or 5.3 miles. It was a great day to start off the morning and I look forward to doing more of that. In order to get up early in the mornings on the weekends though, I need to start cutting back on my movie watching. Because I have no obligations to anyone else on the weekends, I feel entitled to stay up late and exercise my rebel without a clause routine. There is a couple of books I need to finish reading/get around to reading, and since I'm a bad multi-tasker the way it is, I need to budget my time a little smarter.
Our work center supervisor, HM2 (Brian) Oldenburg is home in New York on leave with his wife and mother-in-law for 10 day (7 business days). Oldenburg is probably my biggest mentor and one who I consider a friend here at the clinic. His absence is clearly felt, but the Hurt Locker is holding up. Upon his request I send him daily play-by-play color commentary of the days. HN Garcia and I are very loyal to him, and we just make a great team. We all get along and when we're all together it's like a fine oiled machine. Our pharmacist, LT Quach probably misses him more than I do, but that's only because he is worried about Garcia and I messing up/Oldenburg is our supply guy. Garcia is being trained to take over supply, but HM2 is the mastermind behind the pharmacy, and he makes LT's job very easy. I think that's all I got to say about that.
I'm sure I'll talk about it in my next post, but this will be the third consecutive St. Paddy's Day I have to miss out on. Two years ago I was in boot camp, and the only celebrating I did was eat a green-sugar cookie in the shape of a clover, and last year I was recovering from my appendectomy. This year a) I am in a country that doesn't give two shits about the Irish and it's drunken culture, and b) I'm on-call next week for pharmacy, so I have to stay sober. Plus the holiday is on a Wednesday, and who wants to come into work hung over? Well, I wouldn't be writing that 4-5 years ago, but it's funny how things change.
Coming home on leave is still looking good. There were tiny mumbles that they would be sending over humanitarian help of the Chiliean earthquake victims, but those rumors quickly died down. I'm now a little jumbled on the dates though. I have a couple of things I still need to work out as to when I'm exactly coming home (G14 classified as to what those plans are at the moment, or at least a need-to-know basis). Either way, I'm excited to come home, and party arrangements are being made on the dates I know for sure when I'm coming home. I've been to talking to Rich for sure every weekend getting updates on the wedding. It's all very motivating.
Now for the post title. I was writing to a friend tonight actually about how my life is on cruise-control, and how that is a good feeling. Everything is going smooth these past few weeks. Getting work done in the pharmacy, working out, swim club, and enjoying the solitude of my home. Last weekend I bought a patio set which puts my furniture collection almost at a completed status. I'm still getting around to a kitchen table, and after that I will be hosting my house-warming party. I've been living out in town since OCTOBER!! Anyway, it's nice having a better sense of patience. My Japan experiment is almost complete...I'm ready to come home...sigh* 13 more months. Unless you believe in miracles. Now I just need to get out of debt (which is coming along steadily and surely).
On Thursday I am taking the 2nd class petty officer exam. Though I earned a MP (must promote) , I am not being very optimistic on my chances. I don't have many other earned points, and my time in rate is pretty low. Plus, it could potentially hurt my EOD package. Though it would be nice to earn more money, if I were to cross-rate, I would still be a 2nd class as an EOD. That would not be very good being a brand-new EOD, assuming those responsibilites and leadership in a completely new field of work. The EOD community would like to tak it's new recruits as a young and naieve as possible. Get me right, I'm not going to purposely fail my corpsment exam, but if for some celestrial chance I do pick up rank, it could potentially make things more interesting, and not in a good way.
That's about it for now. Last week I recieved the longest letter I have EVER gotten, 7-pages! Thank you Katie. Extremely motivating, and despite being her first letter since 7th grade it didn't leave me unimpressed. A rebuttal was in the mail the next day. Morale is high, and it's time for me to surf the net.
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