Hi everyone! I'm officially back from A School. 12 weeks and 13 hours on planes later I got to enjoy my own bed once again, albeit in a very cold apartment. Time to turn on the heat! I am now a 3rd class petty officer - a boatswains mate to be exact. The entire experience was pretty good. I ended up getting a great roommate - there were a lot of people jealous of our match-up. The two of us and a buddy across the hall actually ended up spending most of our downtime playing World of Warcraft. So yeah, now I'm one of those. Not really sure how much I'll keep playing now that we're done with that place. Seems a shame to let a 76 Druid and a 65 Death Knight go to waste. One of those things that the three of us might use to keep in touch with in the future.

Overall the classes were pretty good and I learned a ton. Which was a big reason I joined the CG in the first place so it was well worth it. I'll just have to make sure I study enough in my free time so that I don't forget all this stuff since there's no way I'll be using it often enough in my day-to-day. It's pretty astounding to think about how much we actually learned. Only thing is that I wish we would have learned how to navigate by celestial bodies - the sun, moon, and stars. Then again, navigating that way isn't exactly accurate. Lots of class time, lots of time plotting charts, doing conversions, and 3 weeks underway. Aced the hardest test with only 3 or 4 hours sleep and completed an optional course on Search & Rescue both for which I received awards for. So now it's back to regular humdrum life. Return to work sometime this week. They haven't told me when they want me to start again. Already have drills this weekend. Then off to Cali to visit the lady for Thanksgiving then back for another round of drills.

Just popping in to say hi to everyone. School is going really great. Got a good roommate. Making a couple good friends and doing a good job of ignoring all the younger kids that don't quite know how to behave and keep their mouths shut and hands to themselves. Really thinking a lot about giving up this Reserve thing, quitting graphic design and going full time active duty. But that'll all depend on whether I can get a station/career path I want. Apparently, the CG is so popular right now and the retention rate is so high that they've shut down the recruit training center for a short time and aren't allowing reservists to go active as easily. Just goes to show, if you're going to join the military, Coast Guard is the way to go.

Also, I have to brag a little bit. Had my big Nav Rules test yesterday. Fail that test and you fail school. What constitutes a failing grade? It takes 90% to pass. 50 questions. Miss 6 and you've failed. So it's a big deal. On top of that, I had watch duty the night before and got a grand total of 3 hours sleep. Not a good day to take a test. That said, I decided to take my sweet ass time answering the questions, went back over the entire test after I finished and carefully read each question again verifying my answers and at the end I was rewarded with 1 of 4 perfect scores. Pretty excited. I'm only the second person at my unit to ace that test.

So now, if anyone finds themselves on a 15 meter sailboat and run aground while in a fog at night, in international waters, you know where to turn to sound the proper whistle signals and display the correct lights.

So outside of studying, life around here is pretty mundane. Lots of class time. Spent a week on the water driving boats around a couple weeks ago. But if you're not in class, there's not a lot going on. As a result, a couple shipmates and I have taken to playing WoW. Never thought I'd ever play it. But it's a decent way to kill time. If anyone's interested, right now we're playing Alliance on Stonemaul.

Hope everyone's well. I'm trying to catch up a bit with people's blogs but I'm a bit behind the times. I'll catch y'all again later.

Just trying to do a quick update here. I'm tethering my internet connection off my phone in an area with really bad service so I can't really surf as I please. But I wanted to jump in here and let everyone know that I'll be away for a few months again. I flew to Yorktown, VA on Sunday for more Coast Guard training. I'll try and poke my head in here now and then but service is too unreliable to make a habit of it. Hope everyone is well. Gotta go do a uniform inspection...