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.