The Halfway Point of School Apr 16-23rd

My long drive was over and I knew my morning was going to be super early. This Monday morning I had to be at Firefighting School at 5:30am. Yea it was early like the wet trainer but once again I did have a lot of fun. It is not often that you can get fully dressed out in firefighting gear and fight fires. Let’s be clear though, that gear was heavy! The lightest thing that I probably wore was my coveralls, gloves, and helmet. The firefighting suit…HEAVY, steel toe boots with steel soles…HEAVY, harness…HEAVY, oxygen tank…HEAVY. I could barely walk, so I did more of a waddle to each station versus a sophisticated, chest up walk. They gave us a few simulators so we fought different types of fires. I got the opportunity of being on oxygen, fighting an ordnance fire, using a fire extinguisher (which was waaaaay heavier than I expected), making calls and fighting a fire in a closed space. I enjoyed my time to say the least but being in this atmosphere is very hot. It’s already hot outside and all that gear increases the heat on top of being close to a real fire. The biggest threat that could have happened was that someone passes out because they are dehydrated so the instructors preached hydration before we actually started. I wasn’t able to get a picture in all of the gear but I was fortunate enough to do a full dress out on my 1^st Class Midshipmen cruise.

The rest of the week was pretty smooth but as you should expect there was another exam. Engineering was pretty difficult to me but I passed. I know I’ll need to review all the information from engineering because I will be working in the engineering department on my ship. One thing about being in BDOC is that some of the more technical lessons come easier to those that have actually been on their ship and seen all of the equipment that we are learning. I haven’t been on my ship and won’t be going until the end of the year when we receive it so I behind the curve a little. I of course do my mental release but I definitely zoned out for the rest of the week lol.

We were learning about this program called 3M and this is the go to system for work request or task that needs to be done on your ship. There are different types of checks that every ship needs to do so you constantly need to check this system as an officer. I need to be checking this daily versus my sailors who may check it once a week. You also can’t finesse the system because it does document the last time each person logs on and who approves what jobs through the system. This was actually my second time learning about this program, I learned this in my second school so this was kind of a refresher. I won’t be able to get the full effect of the system until I physically get on my ship and go through all the jobs that need to be done.

I Stayed in Town This Weekend

The title says it all lol. I stopped city hopping for a week. My Friday night was pretty chill and I actually hung out with my friend who was a pilot. Same branch, completely different lifestyle. I can give him SWO lingo and I’ll get told I don’t speak SWO but I he talks in pilot slang I don’t know what’s going on either. It was pretty cool talking about our differences in our work but it is somewhat similar. Saturday was full of running errands and I ran outside for the first time in two weeks. I got a lot of work to do since I took two weeks off but I will do fine on my PRT when I get back to California.

I had plans to go to the gun range and I did but I was not able to shoot that day since I went alone. I have my concealed weapons license and all but it was more of a suicide prevention thing because it was my first time there. In simple terms a lot of people will go to a gun range alone and rent the guns, buy ammo, and shoot themself in the range. Pretty gruesome but I fully understand. I’ll just go back next week and get some shooting on. I just want to practice a little since we have a gun shoot graduation week and I haven’t shot in a while.

Besides my errand full weekend I didn’t do much of anything but plan on my trip to D.C. next week. I have to study damage control since the exam is next Wednesday but that weekend should be fun. I am really looking forward to seeing the African American museum and finally taking some amazing pictures with my camera. Oh yeah, I’m trying to knock off a few food spots that I saved for D.C. off my list too. I also need to visit Hampton, which is not that far from where I am, but I keep pushing it off. I still have some places I need to see in the area but I still have time to see them all and share with whoever is reading.

I'm on the Move Apr 10-16th

The struggle was more than real preparing for class this Monday morning. We left a late from Atlanta and still had an 8 ½ hour drive back to Virginia. We arrived back into town around 3 am and I set a ton of alarms so that I could wakeup for class. I do not recommend this type of behavior at all but I have no regrets of my fun weekend. I luckily had my uniform and stuff ready before I left for the weekend so that gave me extra time to sleep in. School obviously doesn’t stop but I had time to study for my DIVO fundamentals exam that was on Wednesday. Of course I passed again lol and now back to a mental release and preparation of my drive home that I would be taking that weekend.

Before I can even get myself prepared to go home to Florida that Thursday we had to do training in the wet trainer. Having to be at a location at 5:30am mentally blew me but I knew my day would be done before 12 so no big deal. This trainer teaches you the basics of how to fix your ship if there is an unfortunate event that you may encounter a leak or huge hole. You can’t abandon ship so of course you have to fix the problem. The wet trainer was obviously wet but it was super fun! It’s like a giant pool for adults but we were trying to save the ship. Unfortunately our efforts to patch up all the holes and leaks were not too successful. So to exit we had to climb this ladder with water gushing down through the hole. I was soaked and my boots were full of water. Once class was over I went home, took a much-needed shower, and went out to lunch with some girls from class. Now being that is Thursday I had to stop being lazy and get everything ready for my solo trip back home to Florida. The school that I am in allows you to travel just about anywhere as long as it will not interfere with class and another plus is you aren’t charged leave days to go. I am utilizing these weekends before I actually don’t have time to go back home or travel when I want to.

The trip itself was not bad at all. Took about 8 ½ hours to get to Jacksonville, $35 in gas and only 2 stops the whole trip. I grew up on road trips so this drive was not bad to me at all, plus it beats paying $600 round trip for a flight. Thank you Apple Music, Sirius XM and Spotify for being the best DJs a solo driver could ask for. My off key singing and awesome playlist kept me entertained.

Weekend with Family

I haven’t physically seen my family since I left for California on January 2^nd so this weekend is pretty exciting and I get to sorta spend Easter with them. My first night home I was fortunate to finally see the items that I worked so hard for, my college diploma and commissioning scroll. Physically seeing both of my accomplishments gave me a pretty good feeling and I know that there will be more fancy plaques to come in my future (gotta speak it into existence). Besides seeing my parents I also visited my aunt and spent some time with her. I also saw my buddy and her family since they were in town for Easter. I really didn’t do much while I was home but it was an amazing feeling to be in a bed of my own and not the hotel. I wasn’t able to spend the entire day of Easter with my parents but they were happy that I came down even if it was for a small amount of time.

As time began winding down for me to hit the road I said my goodbyes to my parents and what should have been an 8 ½ - 9 hours took me a miserable 10. I ran into some ugly traffic jams but it wasn’t like there was an accident but people drive in the fast lane and drive slow. Please if you aren’t going over the speed limit just stay in the slow lane! I made it home safe and was happy to be out of the car and into my bed at the hotel. I set up my things for my next day, which was firefighting and had to be up super early the next morning.

Anticipation Apr 3-9th

Another week, another exam passed. NSS kicked my butt. I went in there running off 1 hour of sleep, a cup of coffee, and just prayed that I recognized the information. I did second-guess myself on quite a few questions but I still prevailed! Being that I was drained I was not thinking about any work besides going to sleep when I got back to my room. On the plus side that trip to Atlanta is looking nice this weekend.

Now before I get this much needed sleep that I have been missing we have a major event that evening. It was going to the Admiral’s house for a semi social evening. It is nothing new because every BDOC class on both east coast and weat coast are “invited” to the Admiral’s house of the region for Surface Warfare. Easiest way to say this is the “big boss” of surface navy for east and west coast. That night was pretty nice and I can say I’ve met my 4^th Admiral in just 4 months of being a commissioned officer!

The lessons we are learning right now is Division Officer Fundamentals. I thought NSS was bad but this section has so much information and too many acronyms. It is really teaching me how to understand the systems present for my sailors and I. Big thing is that I need to keep everything that could possibly be put in my record up to date. I am now a real adult and responsible for my career and noticing any discrepancies.

You can only discus work so much and there are things I cannot do until I actually report to my crew. The information presented to me of all the other task I am in charge of just means that I need to take time out and play on all these systems. The “B” in BDOC stands for basic so they only scrape the surface of everything we need to know.

I will push a lot of that stress to the side and just enjoy that I passed my exam and Atlanta is a few days away. One of my friends who is also military and I went to this grilled cheese spot. We have been planning this meal for a week and the day has finally came. Now they didn’t sell some bread and melted cheese but there was definitely bread and melted cheese in the mix lol. I must say that the sandwich and fries I had lived up to the hype of what he told me. Better part is that they aren’t cheating you because neither of us were able to touch the second half of the sandwich (he’s bigger that me). All that meant in my book was that I have some lunch for tomorrow.

This week I also ended up trying something way out of my norms. One of the girls in my class told me that there was a lady teaching Zumba at the gym everyday at 5:30. I haven’t done Zumba since 10^th grade and that was in a closed area. I arrived to zumba thinking that the lady was teaching in a workout room…NOPE. Right in the middle of the gym (basketball court style gym), this woman has her huge speaker, colorful gear on and literally flagged me down when I walked in. Now I thought it was a joke of where we were going to be dancing but no we were in the middle of the court dancing. The people surrounding us who were lifting weights or on the machines had the same impression I did. I did feel super awkward at first since it was only 4 of us total dancing but if I never had confidence before that surely boosted it. The lady treated it as a real class with so much enthusiasm and all that yelling and clapping lol.

That class made me question every ounce of rhythm I swore I had. As soon as I got good at one move she transitioned. I looked foolish but didn’t care, I had fun while looking foolish. Cool thing about this was after the class I spoke with her and she is an African American Marine Corps Officer that loves Zumba. I would have never knew the Marine part because I usually expect them to look angry and never dress in bright colors. You hear Marine and think the only thing that makes them happy is giving everyone an angry look, yelling, shooting, and working out not dressed in bright colors teaching Zumba. Officers do have lives outside of what branch they are in and what they do for a living. Plus the female marines that I have met in the past can be a pitbull in public but have super girly lifestyle when not saving the world.

Am I Ready?

Knowing that my job is so much bigger than having my own division is kind of nerve racking.  Will I be a good leader? Will my division be successful? What if I mess up? There is much more to the surface and the question I think to myself is am I actually ready to be this great leader. We are fortunate enough to have panels from chiefs and other junior officers so that we can pick their brains. As many questions that we could ask we still have to remember that everyone’s experience will always be different but good advice will help us in the long run.

Of course being a good leader is important but everyone has heard about what the US has recently done to Syria. That’s really what can get any of us new ensigns nervous regardless if our ship did it or not.  Shockingly there are a few people here at the school that are on the two ships that did launch those missiles. Even though they are in school they have a lot on their plates on what they shall encounter in the future once school is over. It is events like this that will make any person nervous of what the future holds for them.

Crew Link Up😝

The day has finally came and we are headed to Atlanta. I got out of class and hour early, had my bags packed, and got enough rest so that I can drive my portion. This trip is pretty important for many reasons: first major girls trip since all of us graduated college (except little T shes a year younger than us), Candis' birthday, and this will be the last time big T will get to be with us before she goes on deployment. Either way we all are together minus Kay and this weekend was epic. It was like we never left each other last August. Cool part is there were other officers there too! Melanin everywhere this weekend even though most of us will have to go back to our military lives, different jobs, or school on Monday morning.

The birthday girl enjoyed her time, I had a great time and loved being with the girls and their shenanigans. That Sunday I think we all realized that we have gotten old and probably partied too hard.  Since we all have real jobs that we “treated” ourselves this weekend with no regrets. You do what you want when you're popping, right? This is one of many trips that we will make as the crew and I already know it will get better each time especially when we all have our warfare pins and rank up. No one will be able to tell us nothing by then lol. We survived FAMU and all of us are surviving in the real world. It's the little weekends like this that make any stress that we are going through not matter for the small amount of time that we are all together.

Back to The Struggle Mar 27-Apr 2

I will not lie but I have been enjoying avoiding responsibilities. I know I should have been studying last week but now reality is hitting. This NSS exam is covering 29 sections! Its so much information and now we have learned 3 types of maneuvering boards. The only one I can do without questioning anything is winds but I figure the exam will pull stuff out of nowhere. Of course even with the stress of fighting sleep and not zoning out my two favorite instructors keep me entertained. Mr. Wayne did the infamous quote “Nobody got time for that” and of course I thought of that funny video.

I am trying to be a productive student and trying to add stuff to my different hard drives so I can be organized. My important one worked fine but the one that I put my pictures and random things on didn’t want to cooperate. I have a MacBook so everything is not compatible and you have to do a little extra work for stuff to work. Now I could have spent an extra $10 dollars when I bought it but nah, I’m cheap lol. I end up having to find the underlying issue then format my hard drive so that I can add files to it. No I didn’t lose my stuff, I just copied the files to my computer and then retransferred them when I fixed the issue. Ladies and gentlemen never underestimate the power of Google! You can become a computer tech within a few searches and detailed instructions.

Now if you don’t know I have been living in a hotel since I’ve gotten to Virginia. And I must say even though I am in a hotel no one would really know because I stay cooking something in my little kitchenette. I have been eating pretty good with legit breakfast, cooking steaks for dinner, and having a lunch packed daily that isn’t just a TV dinner or sandwich. W hen it is time for me to go back to California I need to find a way to strategically pack my seasonings up so that I can take them with me. As you eat good you start to look good. I have been consistently working out and I really like the improvements😁. The key is to look good and feel even better, I don’t believe in depriving myself to some almonds and water to reach my fitness goals.

Back to the school side of things we learned about Celestial Navigation and that is basically using the stars to help navigate. The Navy has done away with it but they are slowly bringing back the old ways of navigation. Everyone in the world depends so much on electronics that we would be lost if we did not have GPS at our disposal. We also got a ship tour and it was good and bad. I’ll start with the bad first and that is because we were rained on the entire time. I believe in learning but standing in pouring rain and having to stay in that same uniform for the rest of the day is never fun. I felt like a wet dog and all of us mentally clocked out since we were in a cold building and in wet clothing. The good side though was I finally get to see all the things that we have been learning in class. Those little phrases and symbols are starting to make sense.

Stress Relief Will Always be Food

This NSS is pretty stressful but food can always change your mood. Friday night I went out to this seafood buffet called Captain George and it lived up to my minimum standards. The food was really good but I actually got the opportunity to try foods that I would not buy on a regular because I am unsure of the taste. Of course after a good dinner I did want to go see some friends but plans got changed and I ended up in bed. Now Saturday I hopped on the study bus and started going through these lessons so that I won’t cram but it is still a lot of information to process. Again one of my girls from FAMU invited me to this other seafood spot called The Shaking Crab and of course I was down to go. Now this food exceeded my expectations and I would definitely go again. My favorite type of food is seafood so I didn’t mind having it two days in a row. Another cool thing about the place is you can sign the wall and I made sure I signed in an area where I know people won’t initially sign since it was pretty high up (I stood on furniture for this lol).

But there will be no fun for me tonight because even though it is Saturday night I need to study for this exam on Monday. Went back to my hotel and unfortunately crashed. So Sunday was the dreadful, hair pulling, reconsideration, why do we need to know this, all day and night study session. I didn’t sleep that day besides a power nap fro 12-1am and to boost my energy and I made a small cup of coffee (I don’t drink coffee). It sounds horrible but it just reminds me of college days where you and other classmates spend hours and days studying for an exam and yall make a 35 (life of a biology student).

There is motivation to my madness though. I have plans on going on this girls trip next weekend to Atlanta and me having to be on mandatory study is not the move. Top reason is because everyone is off and they are going to be waiting on me to get out of class so we can hit the road. That extra two hours after class will only mean I’m staying in Virginia for the weekend and I’ll be salty watching everyone’s SnapChat stories. 9 out of the 10 girls of this group will be I attendance and only person missing will be Kay since she in all the way in Cali. And with this weekend endeavor brewing in my mind I am mentally planning all my future weekend and day trips😈.