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the chicks have flown
Nov. 30th, 2003 02:10 amApparently, I just need to be really really tired for no explainable reason before I get off my ass--or in this case, on my ass-- and do something. Something being write, or rather type sluggishly with one feeble finger.
Over the last month I've been in overdrive, overwhelmed, overloaded, over-everything, and the fast pace spread over into the weekends as well. I could have found time to write (esp. between long hours of blank-headed channel flipping), and I couldn't muster up the energy, and I regret that. These were four weeks that I'd like to have had recorded. A lot has happened.
Remember I said I was going out to "the field"? Well, I did. We spent a week out in tents, with me and T manning the instruction position 24 hours a day, just the two of us, and trainees coming in at all hours. After an entire week we stank like hell (cultivating a smell worse than that of male soldiers in training is an accomplishment not to be diminished!), but it was surprisingly satisfying (not the smell). The experience of teaching one-on-one at 3AM, literally on a hill in the middle of nowhere under a starry sky, is so much more intimate than at the base. Plus, the boys were all up straight from bed and had fuzzy cute night-hair.
The two-or, er, three weeks after that were the most intense weeks of the "semester". The courses were ending, and all the stupid commanders who had canceled classes before or had put off tests trainees had had to make up, suddenly remembered that they were only two weeks away from the end and had a lot left to go. We, the instructors, worked our asses off from dawn to dusk for all of those weeks, seeing the trainees as much as a dozen times a week, and I can begin to explain how much I enjoyed it. Even when one of my courses' officer informed me that they were so far behind I would have to stay the weekend without even having packed beforehand, it turned out to be the most enjoyable Saturday spent at the base yet. We played games with them, and joked around, and they were much more carefree, seeing as they were near the end. There was a time I almost cried (no, really, I almost cried tears) after I saw the results of their first test and thought I was a complete failure as an instructor; last weekend, I started yelling ecstatically as I was checking their final tests. They averaged out at a 90, my beautiful baby kitties.
Then Wednesday came, and they "broke distance" with their commanders and us too--not that we had much distance with them--and it was nearly as meaningful as when my commanders broke distance with us. I sat with them until 2AM and got to know them a little, talked to them about how the course was for them, couldn't wipe the smile off my face.
This past Thursday they left, most of them. I can't bear to think of them out on the front. They really are babies. When I was a kid, soldiers were big and strong. After I was drafted, they became normally proportioned regular guys. And now they're ittle-wittle-baby-kitties, and I'm gonna miss them so much!
Next week I'll write about my new job.
* * *
I still read my friends' journals. Just so you know. I don't always completely catch up, but I'm still there with you, thinking, smiling, worshiping your writing style (Angua), happy that everyone's life seems to be going okay. Happy Thanksgiving.
Over the last month I've been in overdrive, overwhelmed, overloaded, over-everything, and the fast pace spread over into the weekends as well. I could have found time to write (esp. between long hours of blank-headed channel flipping), and I couldn't muster up the energy, and I regret that. These were four weeks that I'd like to have had recorded. A lot has happened.
Remember I said I was going out to "the field"? Well, I did. We spent a week out in tents, with me and T manning the instruction position 24 hours a day, just the two of us, and trainees coming in at all hours. After an entire week we stank like hell (cultivating a smell worse than that of male soldiers in training is an accomplishment not to be diminished!), but it was surprisingly satisfying (not the smell). The experience of teaching one-on-one at 3AM, literally on a hill in the middle of nowhere under a starry sky, is so much more intimate than at the base. Plus, the boys were all up straight from bed and had fuzzy cute night-hair.
The two-or, er, three weeks after that were the most intense weeks of the "semester". The courses were ending, and all the stupid commanders who had canceled classes before or had put off tests trainees had had to make up, suddenly remembered that they were only two weeks away from the end and had a lot left to go. We, the instructors, worked our asses off from dawn to dusk for all of those weeks, seeing the trainees as much as a dozen times a week, and I can begin to explain how much I enjoyed it. Even when one of my courses' officer informed me that they were so far behind I would have to stay the weekend without even having packed beforehand, it turned out to be the most enjoyable Saturday spent at the base yet. We played games with them, and joked around, and they were much more carefree, seeing as they were near the end. There was a time I almost cried (no, really, I almost cried tears) after I saw the results of their first test and thought I was a complete failure as an instructor; last weekend, I started yelling ecstatically as I was checking their final tests. They averaged out at a 90, my beautiful baby kitties.
Then Wednesday came, and they "broke distance" with their commanders and us too--not that we had much distance with them--and it was nearly as meaningful as when my commanders broke distance with us. I sat with them until 2AM and got to know them a little, talked to them about how the course was for them, couldn't wipe the smile off my face.
This past Thursday they left, most of them. I can't bear to think of them out on the front. They really are babies. When I was a kid, soldiers were big and strong. After I was drafted, they became normally proportioned regular guys. And now they're ittle-wittle-baby-kitties, and I'm gonna miss them so much!
Next week I'll write about my new job.
* * *
I still read my friends' journals. Just so you know. I don't always completely catch up, but I'm still there with you, thinking, smiling, worshiping your writing style (Angua), happy that everyone's life seems to be going okay. Happy Thanksgiving.
