My training period for the Navy is two-thirds over. Really weird to think about how two years ago today I was bummed out over not finding work and hiding out in my bedroom avoiding my roommate and his girlfriend, slowly killing my college career through laziness and apathy and living off of nothing but cold cereal and Hot Pockets. So glad to be done with that.
Just moved into a new apartment in upstate New York. Finding the place was a bit of a blessing, actually. I ran into a friend of mine out at the mall near the hotel my roommate and I were staying at, we caught up, he locked his keys in his car, I drove him back to get his spares ... and we ended up going out to eat at a local bar with a bunch of other Navy guys, one of whom was telling us how the place he was staying at had one vacancy and two people leaving. So my roommate and I jumped on that immediately.
Turns out the place is about five minutes from where I'll be working and is also basically smack dab in the middle of a boatload of hiking and outdoorsy stuff. Landlords are quite personable (they live in half the house, and renovated the other half for people to live in; they're working on another apartment addition in their basement level), and it ended up saving us about two or three days of house-hunting.
The kitchen's a mess right now. Got a bit of a smell, too. I opened the fridge and died a little inside. I'll have to attack it later. Gotta get myself squared away first. Hopefully I can be creative with the furniture arrangement and fit myself a dresser in here.
It's been pretty cold up here this past week. Definitely a welcome change from the January 90s we've been having in Charleston, but today swung totally the opposite direction; it was -9 F this morning, and when I went out to my car, almost everything in it had frozen—including a two-gallon jug of laundry detergent and both of my suits.
I laughed, and wished I hadn't packed my gloves away. Gotta find those....
I really don't want to go in Monday. I know I'll be fine once the actual job starts, but the first few days at the command are going to be long and boring and a lot of sitting around waiting for nothing at all to happen. I most likely won't even be starting the training right away. From what the guys who've been up here for two months have been saying, there's a strong possibility that the plants won't be taking on new people from my rate for quite some time, so I'll be stuck with grunt work for a while.
I don't really mind the grunt work. I just mind the idiocy of the endless paperwork spearheaded by people with the most sour attitudes on the face of the planet. Not to mention they hate us in particular because we're offered so much more in the way of monetary incentives to stay in the Navy.
Anyway, back to unpacking.
