Took a Break but Now I'm Back :) July 15th

Ahhh it’s been a while since I have done a post! Last post I left off where I was just coming back from Virginia and trying to get settled back in and preparing for my PRT. Well I still have my job so that means I passed my PRT lol. A lot has happened in this past month and a half and things actually got hectic with trying to be productive in life and keep up my post. I took a break because I honestly did not know how being an adult and moving (by myself vs having help) was so hard.

Good news is I turned 23 (May 20^th) went to the Chris Brown concert as a pre birthday event and went to LA and hiked the Hollywood sign. I didn’t do much for my actual birthday since I was moving into my new place 3 days later (way better than blowing money on a birthday) but I still had a good time. Along with moving and birthday celebrations I went to Vegas with some friends for Memorial Day weekend and enjoyed myself. I also celebrated my birthday once again for part of that weekend. Even though I didn’t take many pictures while I was there I didn’t get arrested, get married, or lose any money in the casinos.

I came back to reality after my lovely trip and had to handle the real issues of moving. I finally received my items that I haven’t seen for 5 months when I last packed it and I was excited but ended being disappointed due to the condition of how a few of my things arrived. My tv was shattered, table broken in half and other things that had to get replaced. So far my tv is the only thing that I have been reimbursed to replace for the damages. Everything else has to go through a long lengthy process to get the money to replace items that the moving company broke.

I finally have a place and the big thing is to actually unpack all of my things. It took me like 3 weeks to get everything I wanted together and go through, throw away, try on all my clothes, and seeing were certain things worth keeping. This also includes buying the things I never paid attention to that I actually need to function in my apartment.

While the struggles of being an adult are present I also went to two more schools (totaling to 8 schools so far). Out of my 8 schools 4 required special keys for accessing the buildings. And of course being in the military life is never unstable. Once I finally got myself settled in and enjoyed being back in California I had to get ready for my next cross country trip to Rhode Island for another school (school #9 & special badge access #5).

I arrived here on July 1^st and do not like Rhode Island at all. Only reason why I have to be here out of all the states is because this is where the school for my actual job that I will be doing on my ship is located. And since its I will be the Electrical Officer (ELECTRO) that’s pretty important. I control the ships electrical power so I rather know how to do my job than having to explain why people are getting electrocuted or why the lights are out on the ship. I’m only here for a month so I am mentally counting down the days until freedom.

 There are many complaints I have about being here but the top kicker is the base that I am on is more catered to higher ranking military and there really isn’t nothing on this island within walking distance. Since I have no car I have to depend on either being friends with people who have cars, pay overpriced Uber fees since Uber isn’t too popular here, or walk. If this base had a theater I wouldn’t be as salty because I would just go to the movies all the time even if I have to watch the same movie.

It sucks that I don’t have a rental but it is because I am staying on base and big Navy figures you can walk to your course vs knowing how far everything is in relation to where you are staying. Just for me to go “grocery shopping” on base it is ½ a mile from my actual hotel so just imagine walking and trying to carry bags back to your room. I have basically set myself into a pretty routine schedule of what I do daily while I am confined to this boring base. I’m either in class, in my room, or going to the gym. The only benefit of where my hotel is located is that I am right across the street from school and the gym. Another bummer is that anything fun to actually do is over 40 minutes away. Just lookup Newport, Rhode Island and tell me what “attractions” that are actually in Newport vs the surrounding areas.

Being back in a school that lasts the whole day this one is worse than BDOC. I’m in class from 7:30am to about 5pm daily. It doesn’t help anyone’s sanity either that the instructors read verbatim instead of summing things up. I zone out because I sure everyone can read every sentence on the screen and were given the slides on day one (currently typing this in class, its 184 slides mixed with a bunch of the instructor liking to hear himself talk). I am surviving by my usual snacks and daydreaming mixed with taking my own notes and if they don’t walk around too much maybe a game of solitaire.

This course consists of 4 quizzes and 4 exams. Unlike BDOC the quizzes actually count towards your overall grade so you can't really bs a quiz if you don’t want to stay for extra study. A 75% is passing but your average cannot drop below an 80% to stay off mandatory study (so much for the bare minimum). I have taken 2 quizzes so far and there are a lot of fill in the blank short answer portions versus multiple choice. From quiz 1 I knew my stuff but have to elaborate more on my short response. Quiz 2 I was better prepared and only got like 3 questions wrong (my brain went blank on the easy stuff). Monday I took exam 1 and made sure to give examples and give them more than what they wanted so that I could get all of my points. I passed my exam and now have 5 more tests to go before I can say I’m done with this school, state, and death by verbatim powerpoint. My next exam is this coming up Monday and I'm ready since I take some pretty good notes and the instructor gave us a review.

Minus the crappy part of my life in BFE (look it up) Rhode Island I do have some plans while I am here. One of these weekends I want to try and go to New York since it is about 2 hours away and Boston. I’m either going to have to bite the bullet and get a rental or hopefully find a bus/train system that actually travels to these areas. I was told the seafood specifically lobster was very good up here so I have to take some time out and go try this lovely food. When life gives you lemons you can complain about it, make lemonade, squirt them in your enemy’s eyes, or use it as a decoration to your alcoholic beverage. Lets just say lemonade, alcohol, and a lemon wedge on the side of my cup is how I am trying to live right now.