I got up nice and early this morning for drill team.  Got dressed, got my stuff together for the day, rolled out in plenty of time.  On my way, I ran into John, who told me we were meeting at the gym, 'didn't you get the email?'  Obviously not.  When we get there, the platoon sergeant says, "Oh, you can go home if you want.  We're just unpacking Semper Fi stuff at the vault today so you don't have to stay."  Awesome.  "Sorry I didn't email, Gunnery Sergeant didn't call me until 6:20 this morning to tell me."  Yeah, that's when I got up.  Guess what?  I have a phone.  I could have slept an extra hour and twenty minutes if someone were thinking.  Bah.

My new semester resolution is to stop being such a tight-ass.  So far it's working for me.  Kinda.

My roommate's friend borrowed a pair of my shoes.  I wouldn't care, except she wore them to a club and now they are all skuffed the hell up and look like shit.  What the fuck.  Growing up an only child, I kind of had to learn to share later than most kids (like, late pre-school, early elementary school, haha), and that kind of thing does not reinforce the notion that sharing is good, polite, and fun.  Grr.

In other news, I am not the only person crazy enough to lock myself in the basement of Phillips practicing until 11pm.  I got there a little before ten, and about half an hour later some piano player showed up.  Now, the rooms down there aren't soundproof.  There are two short halls of them, with 6 or 8 rooms each, I guess.  Until the piano kid got there, I was the only person around.  You would think the kid would go in the other hallway so we couldn't hear each other.  I guess he wanted company, because he sat down across the hall.  It was kinda distracting (for both of us, I imagine) to have crazy classical and ancient jazz playing at the same time.  Dumbass.   Go in the other hall.

Then, when I was leaving around 11, I ran into Dr. Baker.  It was super-awkward.  I was like, "Hey, Dr. Baker, what are you doing here so late on a Friday?" and he says he is trying to learn a role blah blah, and asks me, "What are you doing here?"  And instead of saying, "um, I don't have a piano in my dorm room, ass hole!", I politely replied, "Practicing."  What the fuck else would I be doing in the music department, coming out of a hallway of practice rooms with a bag of music?  "Oh, just making dinner, Dr. Baker."  No. 

Despite all this bitching, I have actually been doing quite well.

Blah blah.  More another time.

I'm sending packages to some contacts from anysoldier.com this week.  It breaks my heart because I already picked the folks I'm sending to, and bought the goods...but I still just want to send something to all of them!  If anyone has spare time, you should check out the site and send a letter ior anything you can spare.  This is my second time sending things, but I've been surfing the site for almost a year.  I ended up sending a lot of stuff I got for Christmas- you know, the ten packs of razors you will never use before next year, the ten tubes of chapstick- they need it, and I'll never use it.

Anyway...just a little shameless promotion for some pretty special folks. Again, the address is www.anysoldier.com .  It's not politically affiliated, so don't worry.  You don't have to support the war to support the troops.

BLEHEEEEHEHEHEEEH!!

I just got my last grade for the semester that I have been waiting and waiting for so I could see my GPA.  I had no idea what it was going to be beacuse he said he was going to curve it, but that it was going to be different depending on what your grade already was.  So, I was in the dark.  BUT.  I JUST GOT IT.  ANNNNDDDDDD

I WILL FINALLY BE RECEIVING MY ACADEMIC STARS.

For those of you that remember, my unit gives out academic stars if you have a GPA over a 3.5, and last semester I had a 3.49 that wouldn't round up.  I was robbed.  Robbed, I tell you.  So this semester is was freakin ON.  AND I MADE IT.  EAT IT.  The bling is mine!  Mwahahahaha...

Yesterday was pretty awesome.  I was in the "Embassy", and I was holding 4 Marine Security Guards hostage, with one other mid.  (Those are the guys that are the guards at foreign embassies)  The DSS team (from the DoS) was late coming from Blackwater because the roads were bad, and the roads were bad at Quantico, and then their recon took forever, so the whole evolution was delayed over an hour.  So, it sucked that we had to stand around freezing our butts off, but I did get to talk to the Marines all morning.  Normally the enlisted guys don't talk to us so much, for all the obvious reasons.  But, we were stuck in the room together, and I was the only female in a couple of mile radius, so we chatted.  They showed us some knife-fighting maneuvers that the guy in charge of the exercise (small Asian ex-Delta Force guy) taught them, they talked about chow, Iraq, made fun of the Air Force, then one of the instructors came in for a little and they all talked about being extras on movies and TV shows.  It didn't have anything to do with the service- somehow they just had all randomly happened to have been in movies or TV.  Apparently, James van der Beek is a "pussy".  Then they got bored and starting doing PT. 

Finally, the exercise started...I got shot, obviously.  But only in the arm.  And I managed to get off six or seven shots of my own first.  Which I think wasn't so bad, considering I'd never done anything like that before, and I was outnumbered two, then three to one.  Not necessarily realistic, but there was lot of artillery noise, and the teams firing, so I think it will help me to be a lot be less frightened if I am ever in a hot location.  My heart was pounding so hard when I heard them coming up the stairs- I was scared of getting shot, but it wasn't so bad- just a couple of welts and some broken skin (we were at pretty close range). Obviously not like getting shot for real, but at least now I have a slight idea what it's like being shot at, and having to shoot at someone.  Shit happens fast.  Like our instructor said, "How old are you?  20, 21?  You think someone can't take that away from you in a nanosecond?  A fraction of a millisecond?   You have a girlfriend, a couple hundred dollars in a bank accout- they take that all away."

It was chill being the only girl, too- the only bitch work I had to do was sweeping the floor, and it was one of the other mids that had me do it.  I didn't mind.  The instructor in charge kept saying, "How you doing, ma'am?  You having fun?"  I would do it again in a second!  Afterward, the guy in charge and the MSGs that I had been guarding gave all the mids and cadets a class in clearing rooms.  It was amazing to watch- those guys are...amazing.  Geez, I sound like Tom Cruise.  'Amazing' is the only word I can come up with.  They're so in synch, just like (cliche warning!) an well-oiler machine.

But now... I am HOME, and as of fifteen minutes ago IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!  Just think, a year from now I will getting shit-faced at McFadden's, haha.

Call me if you are also home, and I promise I will act like a female.  I swear.  I'll even put on lipstick and giggle.  Kisses.