Posts Tagged ‘Air Force’

So things are going great! School is awesome. My Mondays and Wednesdays are crazy long, but I'm getting used to it. I have a chemistry lecture at 9:00, three other classes throughout the days, then wrap it all up with a two and a half hour calculus lecture until 9:20. Chemistry is with the same prof as last semester and I don't care for him much, though I do feel I am learning more in this class than Chem 1. I picked up an intermediate piano class twice a week to do something fun, and I'm one of two students enrolled. The teacher has a beginner's class at the same time, so she just sets the two of us in practice rooms by ourselves to do our own things. It's fine with me because now it's more of an independent study sort of course. I play whatever I want, I just need to perform a piece from each of four different music eras. I played for a long time when I was younger, but it's been so long since I've touched the keys, I really wanted to brush up. It's all rushing back pretty quickly, thankfully. My teacher is also the director of the Lompoc School of Music, a nice little academy in town where people to go learn piano and whatnot. Well, I guess they have a shortage of instructors and my teacher asked me to come on down and teach beginners. I'll pop in sometime next week to check the place out and fill out some paperwork, but I told her this semester is so busy, I won't be available much. She thinks this semester would work out if I were a substitute teacher, then began the full-time thing with my own students in the summer. I'm psyched! I figured someday I'd like to teach piano, but I envisioned myself much, much older. This would be a great experience and I'm really looking forward to giving it a shot! My Physics 2 class is pretty much all the same students from Physics 1 last semester. We have a grand ol' time. Right now we're studying thermodynamics, which crosses over with some of the material presented in chemistry last semester. It's not so bad, but I don't find it all that interesting either. Physics 2 at this college is sort of a hodge-podge or random topics fit between Physics 1's Mechanics and Physics 3's Electricity and Magnetism. I love my teacher so much though! Same woman as last semester. I think she's great. I had a six hour break between my physics class and my math class, so I thought it would be a good idea to pick up something during that time. I decided to go for a general education Concepts in Physics class. Everyone in the class are liberal arts majors of some sort and are taking the course to get a science credit out of the way. It's neat because they're people I don't have any other classes with (unlike all my other classes where I see the same faces all the time). It's all non-math based, mostly just talking about, well, concepts and playing with toys. Right now we're still doing mechanics and motion and all that, which is super-dull since I just spent a whole semester on it. The cool part is I get to sort of play assistant, though. I get to work with the other students and help out with experiments and explain whatever they didn't get during lecture. My teacher (the same woman that teaches my other physics classes, so she already knows and likes me) is going to set up an honors course for the class that I can take to get a 2 credits of honors in. All I have to do is continue to play assistant and do a presentation on whatever I want (physics-related) at the end of the semester. Woo! Math is … interesting. It's at night at the end of a long day and I would have thought I'd be too exhausted to sit in a two hour math class, but I was wrong. My prof is so completely hyperactive and writes notes a million miles a minute, I spend the entire time just trying to keep up with my notes and comfort my pen-blistered fingers. It's fun, though. He's really a super math geek. Last class he put a problem on the board and told us to take a few minutes to work it on our own, then changed his mind, "no, never mind, I'll do it for you!" like kid who just couldn't wait another second to open his present. The material is a little heavy, though, and I think it will be the class demanding the most studying. Half the semester is multivariable calculus, then the other half is linear algebra. It has me a little intimidated, especially because a good portion of our class is students that didn't do so hot in his class last semester. We'll see! I also picked up a tutoring job at the college. Since I have tons of time that I'm hanging out at school waiting to go to class, I figured I'd get a job. My calc 2 teacher last semester recommended me to the tutoring department, so I went to see what it was all about. During my little interview I was signed up to tutor Algebra 1 and 2, Trig, Pre-calculus, and Calculus 1 and 2 as well as Intro to Physics and Physics 1. So any student that comes in looking for help in any one of those classes puts in for a tutor request, and if we have compatible free-time, he'll get matched up with me for some session throughout the week. So far I only have two appointments, an hour with a guy on Thursdays for Calc 2, and the same guy for an hour on Fridays for Physics 1. It'll be great because it will keep me fresh on all that stuff and I'll also gain some more experience sort of teaching. And get paid a little bit, hehe. Right now I only have two hours a week to my name, but I'm sure after the first exam, students will start looking for tutors. Anyhow, now that you're bored to death about school stuff … Things are going well at home. My crocheting has suffered some since I'm always busy. Matt and I (well, mostly Matt right now) are playing Ultima Online instead of World of Warcraft now. Matt's been really nostalgic for the game, since I guess it was the first MMO he played and he's always comparing everything we play to it. We both got a little tired of WoW and he seems much happier now with his gaming choice. Work is still sort of boring for him. They just don't have anything for him to do until he gets his clearance. The wait for an interim clearance is still a year, too. I guess his supervisor came to him the other day and said that since his freeze code (he had a 3-year hold put on him when he got to Vandenberg) expires in February, he'll be reassigned as early as March this year. We were told that he would have another code placed on him once he came to this new job. I'm not sure where the misunderstandings began; Matt just thinks his supervisor's kind of a putz and this whole thing was poorly planned. We aren't packing or anything yet, but Matt had to update his dream sheet (base of preferences … he has three Colorado bases, a Wyoming base, and four California bases on it now) the other day to help his chances of getting somewhere he wanted. I guess we could hear any day now that he has to up and go. If he has to go before the semester is over, unfortunately, I'd probably have to stay here. There's no way I'd get through months of these classes just to either get Fs (probably not since we're on military orders) or have them deleted from my transcripts (most probable). Hopefully that's not the case and if he does get reassigned soon, they'll give him more time and I can finish up this semester. It's still sort of a bummer, though. The guard unit I'm at is almost completely non-deployable since we have a real-world full-time mission and can't afford to have people go. We have a sister unit in Colorado that's in the same boat. But pretty much every other guard unit is highly deployable. Now I don't mean to sound like a coward or anything, I'd just rather serve my country at home than in the desert at this point in my life. If we stay in California or Colorado that's okay, but if he gets sent anywhere else, who knows what will happen. And to him. Right now he's not in a deployable situation either, and that's ideal. I guess we don't have a lot of control over it right now, so we'll just have to see how things shake out. As of right now though, we aren't looking at moving into a larger apartment in March for either the luxury or to accommodate Matthew if he moves out here. It would be silly to pack up and move to another place, just to move out again shortly thereafter. Carol's moving to Nebraska on my birthday. I'm a little bummed out, since she's the coolest (only?) girl I really hang out with around here and we've grown pretty close over the past year. Our schedules rarely match up so, so we don't get to see each other that much anymore. Now that she just has a few weeks left, we're trying to plan all sorts of "dates" before she goes. Going out to eat at places she won't have in Omaha, seeing movies, going to Six Flags. All my weekends will be Carol Weekends! It'll be such a bummer to see her go. We can e-mail and call and message on MySpace, but it will be a while before we see each other again. Friday we went out for Thai food and crocheted together. I'm working on a cute crochet scarf for her right now because I know it's cold out there. I know she's excited to get out of the Air Force and be reunited with her husband and all, so I'm glad for her for that. I hope she finds a girl buddy or a nice couple or someone to hang out with out there, too. Melissa and I have been hanging out a lot more lately, too. I was so terrible while I was working about hanging out with her. Last semester and so far this one has been great, though. We see each other at least once a week (unless some visit or holiday interrupts) and are getting to know each other a lot better! I'm going to pick her up here in a few, so I'll be wrapping this up. Today I think we're going to be all crafty and bead necklaces and earrings and work on her crocheting. It's fun and she's getting a kick out of it. She's meeting weekly with a woman from church now too, and when she told me I turned just a hint of jealous. This lady takes her out to do all the cool things that she and I do or that I want to do with her. I have some big-sisterly competition! I know, it's silly. It's for this woman's school project, she has to get to know a teenager and write a paper about her. Now I just feel like I have to keep Melissa as entertained as she does! It's all good, though, I'm glad she's having fun with another cool adult. Anyhow, I'm off to get all crafty with my sis! Ta ta!

So … Matt doesn’t particularly like working in the shop, but he tolerates it more than I did. The work has gotten old and he has some sort of clash with the new-ish supervisor. Not that Matt’s hard to get along with at all, this guy’s just out to get him or something crazy. Well, today Matt was offered the opportunity to change to another squadron on base. They need a Senior Airman with a 5 skill level and six months retainability, so Matt fit the bill. He’ll be starting his new job doing real 2E1X1 comm work (not this missilier stuff), though I think it’s still related a bit to missiles. So we’re psyched! It’s time for a change. I’d been praying that work would get better and his icky supervisor would lighten up … I guess this is our answer, to just get out of there and seek something new. He’s been in the squadron for over two and a half years though, it’s time to move on. He starts on September 1st.

Oh, and this City of Heroes game just rocks! I’m going to be so addicted, hehe.

I know, now I’m just posting for the sake of doing so. I’m just a little bored. Not that I don’t have a gazillion things to do … I just don’t want to do them right now. I changed things around on here a little bit because I was tired of the way they looked before. I hope everything’s legible enough and all.

I feel kind of cooped up. I really started to loathe my job, but I went back to work yesterday to drop off lunch for Matt and found myself sort of nostalgic for it. I think it’s just that I sit around at home all day doing school work and housework. I was really excited about going to my new job with the guard last weekend, but I guess it wasn’t quite what I thought it would be. What I did before at the 576th was actually pretty cool, it’s just I got really fed up with policies, sergeants, and all the bone-head 20-year old airmen boys I worked with. Not that I think the grass is greener back there, I was ready for a change. I just feel bored in this transition phase where we don’t know where we will be living come February and I’m still just taking here-and-there classes at a community college. I’m not disgruntled or anything, I just want to get on with the next act …

Hah, so I adopted a penguin today! Tal must be pretty jealous … Her name’s Tela and she’s not so good at standing on her own two feet. If you’re super-bored, you can adopt your own pet, too!

Anyhow, I guess I will actually get on with school work. Ta ta!

Well I'm up here in Monterey with my sister and her husband. I'm taking her to the airport tomorrow morning; she is PCSing to Goodfellow AFB. He leaves two days later, so today we've just been cleaning up and Good Will-ing things away. We just got some awesome grub at this classy pizza joint up here. Geez, is Monterey expensive! Quite a nice place, though … Neither Andrea nor Michael had been to a See's Candy, which I believe to be the most spectacular chocolate ever, so we stopped by and picked up half a pound. Ungghh. Andrea has been up here in Monterey at the Defense Language Institute studying Arabic for the USAF. Things haven't been working out so well with that, so she got reclassed into Intelligence Imagery Analysis and her tech school is in Texas. She'll be about six hours away from our father, which will be nice for holidays and long weekends. It's a shame because she's been less than four hours away from me for almost a year and we haven't gotten to spend nearly enough time together. She was going to be my maid of honor on the 11th (oh my goodness, it's coming up so soon!!) but she got orders to leave California on the 1st. It was a huge disappointment, as my wedding is without my maid of honor, best girlfriend, and sister, but there's not anything that can be done about it. So yesterday Matt's grandfather, great-aunt, and aunt sent us a really nice Cutco knife set. It's one of the first wedding gifts we've received and was quite exciting. I was hastily tearing a steak knife from it's cardboard sheath when I sliced my thumb. These knives are really sharp and it was a clean cut, but it got pretty deep and I just kept bleeding and bleeding until I was light-headed. Matt mentioned stitches, but I immediately felt like the biggest weenie even thinking about going to the hospital for a sliced thumb. So every few hours yesterday when I'd poke at it too much it would bleed profusely and I'm still afraid to take the band-aid off. It'll be fine, I just feel like a loser hurting myself on our first wedding gift. Well I'm just sitting around right now while Andrea and Michael take a nap. It's been a long day! I think I'll go follow suit …

Phew, what a week! Work has been just insane lately. So far I have the most hours on the job for Airborne and so does Matt for ground this month. I’m so tired of work and my supervisor. I know he’s in a difficult situation and over-stressed as well, but I truly try my hardest for him and everyday he persistently makes me feel worthless. I don’t know as much as he wants me to or have as much experience as he’d like, but it isn’t my fault. I wasn’t trained well, I wasn’t put on maintenance, I was rushed to be a team chief, and I’m just not confident. At every opportunity he makes me feel two feet tall. I’m so tired of not feeling adequate. It’s like my teen years on rerun.

We went out today to get pedicures and a dining table. Pedicures are our treat. Matt isn’t embarrassed about it anymore — they’re relaxing. We sit in massaging chairs listening to classical music while someone else bathes our feet, clips, snips, scrubs, oils, lotions, massages, files, and paints (well, Matt doesn’t get his toenails painted!) It is so wonderful! And we won’t be eating on a card table anymore. A cute dining table will be delivered to our door any moment now! Our apartment is coming together nicely. I love our home.

Back to work … I should only have four more days left!! I’m on leave today (Tuesday) through Friday because I have extra days and was going bananas. Then I work for four days, have one free week for squadron outprocessing and one for base outprocessing. then take 20 days of terminal leave! It’s so nice. Matt is on crew rest today to go in to work tonight at 9 for the launch, so we get to spend all day today and tomorrow together. Matt’s been playing a lot of Morrowind and I’ve just been doing odds and ends. I’m cooking a lot lately and enjoying it tremendously! Who would have known? I’m making a lot of chicken and pasta dishes and playing with the crock pot. I made a roast on Friday and had Anya over for dinner before we went to a party in Lompoc. It was pretty good and she was our very first house guest. I went to the party with her to be “the friend” and watch out for her and try and find her a man. It was weird — there were a ton of people I didn’t know all getting smashed, but it was fun spending time with Anya and Kevin’s girlfriend, Al. We got there at around 11, goofed around and talked, then got a call from Sgt. M at 1:30am. She and I needed to come into work by 6am for an emergency. Very disappointing! We were like zombies on Saturday and neither Sgt M nor D, the team chief, showed up until at least 6:30. Matt had to work anyway, so it wasn’t a huge deal, I was just exhausted. He had a much longer day than I, and our Saturday was pretty much killed. That’s why resting today is so great! Well, I’m off to to dishes now. More to come later!

My goodness, there’s always something new that comes up! So, the original plan was I separate from the service, we get married 3 days later, than Matt separates two months later. The issue was where we were going to live. We can’t stay in the dorms and we can’t get base housing. We were relying on temporary lodging, but came to find that’s not an option. A two-month lease here is difficult to find in a desirable place. We found a 6-month place, though! The apartment we chose yesterday in Vandenberg Village seems wonderful! So we are getting married in Lompoc today! We have to be wed to receive housing allowances to move off-base. There will still be a wedding in June with our families. They know what’s going on and agree that it is the most practical solution. It’s nothing fancy today. We’re going to the courthouse at three. Redenna, Carol, Dan, and Matt Cooper will all be present. Then later this evening we are going over to Janet’s for dinner.

Oh my! I just got a phone call letting us know that we got the apartment!

Today Matt and went up to San Luis Obispo to get him fitted for a tuxedo. We didn’t end up doing that after all. In a few weeks we’ll take care of it in Fresno. All is going well regarding the wedding. Invitations are being mailed out (yes, it’s a little early.) Mama’s taking care of all the reception details. Aaron will be our photographer. It’s still undecided if Andrea will get Friday off or who will go to get her. That whole situation is frustrating me. She and Jen haven’t picked up their dresses yet, either. It will all come together; I’m just a bit stressed, though.

Matt has decided to leave the Air Force, too. He will apply on Thursday and hopefully will be approved to separate in August. I’ve been working to get at least 60 credits to transfer to a university (originally thinking CalPoly in SLO) but I can go back to CSU under the return student program. I’m reapplying this week and in May Mama and I are going house hunting in the Fort Collins area. Hopefully Matt and I will be able to qualify to get a home loan.