The Corps is Dead (Long Live the Corps?)

That week that all college students alternately love and hate has arrived. Dead week and finals are here! The Corps has died along with classes. We basically have junior privileges that can't be taken away, and no classes to go to except for finals. The relief among the fish class has been expressed in a number of ways. I mysteriously acquired an online dating profile (of the non-reputable kind) and several people have had shaving cream bombs go off in their rooms, had their stuff duct-taped to the ceiling, or had "insignificant" items go missing. Between the bouts of mayhem, we've all found time to study until we think our heads will explode.

It really is amazing how different dead Corps is from live Corps. Instead of being constant training, we rarely see our upperclassmen, and when we do, we rarely interact. The only exception is our Squad Leader evaluations. Over the semester, we've been parts of squads of four to five fish led by a sophomore. That sophomore is our main trainer. He takes specific notice of how we do, eats chow with us, and makes sure we're keeping up with studies. This week, our squad leaders gave us an honest evaluation of how we did. It was pretty helpful. Our squad leader basically told us "You're going to have a hard time coming back. That's normal. You're going to regret coming back. That's also normal. PT over the break."

Brass and Bonfire

Three weeks ago yesterday, we finally got our Corps Brass. We were woken up at about five in the morning to the sound of our sophomores trying to shake our doors to pieces and Squadron 21 and 12, who live below us, smashing slapboards against the ceiling. Within three minutes, we were all out on the wall stretching out to do some serious PT. During the course of the next two hours, we ran across campus to do pushups and flutterkicks on the hill in front of the Bonfire Memorial, pushups on the fish pond, and various other painful methods of common exercises. At the end of it all, we got the brass from our juniors in front of the arches, then ate breakfast with the seniors at Sbisa.

That weekend was one of the best, and also one of the worst that I've had so far. It was great because not only did we get our brass, but we also had Bonfire and I had college lunch at church. It was one of the worst because between the combination of Bonfire, guard room, and earning brass, I worked harder than I have in my entire life with six hours of sleep in three days. That, combined with a bad cold, caused me to nearly pass out at outfit meeting on Sunday night.

Bonfire was an interesting experience, not just for the traditional Aggie things you already know about, but for the unexpected experiences and snafus that night. One of the things that happened was we showed up at almost the exact same time as our sophomores, so we talked with them for almost the entire six or seven hours we were there. Talking to sophomores at bonfire is a strange experience that will probably never be experienced by anyone outside the Corps, or even by much of the Corps. It was a mixture of them telling stories about their time as fish, giving advice on how to be good fish, recounting their reactions to certain events, and general good bull.

The annoying thing about Bonfire is the way that it is set up now. Since it is off campus, you get about ten thousand people all needing parking. The parking lots are a series of huge fields about five miles from the actual burn site. There are buses running from parking to Bonfire, so you don't have to walk (in fact, they strongly discourage walking). The only trouble is, at midnight, when everyone wanted to leave, the twelve buses that had been running earlier had turned into three (no, I don't know why), so about five thousand people were trying to leave at once on those three buses. The only way we got out before about four in the morning was because several of our upperclassmen generously brought back a truck and carried a truckload of drivers to their cars so they could pick the rest of us up.

The thing that was really lousy about that weekend was that by Sunday morning, with the combined effects of a relatively late night on Friday, earning brass on Saturday, Bonfire Saturday night through early Sunday morning, and flag detail at 6:30 Sunday morning, and a bad cold, I almost passed out at outfit meeting Sunday night. I had bag-ins for the next two mornings, so I was able to recover pretty quickly.

Last Full Week of the Corps

As you may know, Thanksgiving is just around the corner. What you may or may not also know is that the Corps is about to start winding down. This is the last full week of classes before the end of the semester, since next week is Thanksgiving break/t.u. game and the week after that is dead week. As such, we should be getting our Corps Brass either Friday or Saturday, which I am very thankful for. During the past few weeks, our class has messed up everything. What do I mean by everything? I'll tell you.



One of the things the fish do every formation is blow calls. Blowing calls is basically a training thing to make sure we have our heads in the game before any event. What happens is one fish and one buddy will come out of their hole about ten seconds (we have to time it exactly to official government time) before the official time for first call. The one who is blowing calls will be wearing a pot (Corps speak for an old hard hat) and carrying a horn. The two fish run down to the end of the hallway, blow the horn, and announce what event is happening, who the senior in charge of it is, who the junior in charge of call to quarters is, and who the sophomore of the day is, as well as the temperature and uniform of the day. We've messed up calls more times during brass than we've gotten them right. It's silly little things like not knowing exactly what the temperature is, not falling out exactly on time, or getting the uniform wrong.



The next thing we've been messing up is getting near the guidon. This is something that we pay dearly for. The guidon is the symbol of our outfit, and the sophomores smoke us hard when we get near it, walk behind it at chow, or, in some cases, actually run into the guidon bearer. I don't know how we keep not seeing it, since the bearer is the tallest sophomore we have, and the guidon itself is about seven feet long with a blue flag on top.



Then come the "various other". We've geen having a general lack of effort in things like uniform drills, inspections, campusologies, and things of that nature. In some cases, it's just stupid mistakes like missing words we can't know, but in the case of uniform inspections, some people just don't spend enough time on it. I'm pretty sure we're going to get smoked hard for the "various other".

On an upwards note, Bonfire is this Saturday! On a down note, we have guard room Saturday-Sunday! The outfit with the best Bonfire tradition was actually given guard room duty on the night of Bonfire. I've actually been out to cut logs once, and it was an experience. We actually got to talk to our sophomores like normal people and learn some special secrets from them (like exactly how to make a shoe look good). We also spent all morning cutting down a huge tree, and were ready to carry it out of the forest when someone at another site dropped their log and broke someone's leg. The leadership at the cutting area decided to suspend the carrying of logs for the rest of the day, so I'm not even sure if our log got out of the forest.


I'm actually doing alright now, though I was on the verge of a total breakdown on Tuesday. I haven't been getting enough sleep (actually, I think I'll get one full night of sleep this week, and that was on Monday) and I have a hard time keeping from smiling at the stupid things the juniors and seniors say. Another problem I'm having is that, to keep from smiling, I'm biting my cheeks, so they're now totally raw, which keeps me from eating quickly. Now the sophomores think I'm one of the limpest fish in the outfit. I've picked up recently, and actually managed to survive a good bull session without smiling once! (That's a big accomplishment, really)

First Week of Corps Brass

Corps Brass push officially started on Monday! This is the part of the fish year where we get to prove to our upperclassmen that we are, indeed, capable of being good little fishies in the Corps. Up to this point, apparently, we have been in a kind of "probationary fish" stage. Now we will get the right to actually wear the Corps symbol on our collar in the place of one of the A.M.U.'s that we normally wear.

To prove that we can be good fish, we have to accomplish a number of goals over the next few weeks. One of those is daily uniform inspections. In one of these inspections, a sophomore goes over you with a notecard and measures your brass, checks your shoes and belt buckle, and generally finds everything that could possibly be wrong. On the notecard, they record all the "cuts" on the uniform so that we can fix them later. In all seriousness, I actually like that part of brass, because my uniform is finally looking how it should. We also can ask questions about how to fix things like deep scratches in brass, scuffs on shoes, and other things like those.

Another thing that's been happening during this week is we're getting smoked a lot more. I'm not sure if it's because it's Corps Brass or what, but we've messed up a lot this week. First, we forgot to run Batfish on Monday. Batfish is the daily delivery of the Battalion, the school newspaper, to our upperclassmen's doors. We had to do a class set (112) of pushupsfor that. The very next day, we forgot again. Another class set. Also, several people didn't do the required amount of Personal Call to Quarters (PCQ) for the week, so we had to do another class set on Friday. Needless to say, we're all more than a little annoyed at the person responsible.

One interesting thing that came out of out Tuesday PT was a six-mile run. We ran from the quad all the way to George Bush Library and back again. I did pretty well, but I can't say the same for all my buddies, or even some of the sophomores and juniors. One sophomore actually complained audibly to his buddies in front of all the fish. Doing better than the upperclassmen in a run makes us all feel great.

Another thing that has changed during Corps Brass is that the good bull from the juniors and seniors has almost completely stopped. Usually, the juniors and seniors don't miss a chance to mess with our minds, do weird things, and generally relax with us (in a wierd, upperclassman, sort of way). It's fun, and it gives me a chance to practice not smiling in the hallway.

I'm still doing alright here, but I'm exhausted. I think I've stayed awake through one whole class this week, and that was the Air Force class, where bad things happen to those who sleep. The late march-in and lack of tasks should give me a chance to catch up on sleep, though.

Looking up?

This week was one of the best I've had so far. The biggest reason was that I didn't mess up any upperclassmen's names, so I had no extra papers to write. As you know, I've had a lot of trouble with that in the past. The weather has also been a bit nicer, with temperatures recently maxing out at about 70 degrees. You have no idea how much of a difference clear skies and comfortable afternoons makes when you have to be running around outside as often as I do.

Last weekend was "traditions weekend" for Squadron Sixteen, so after getting smoked for a while (though I wasn't there for all of it, courtesy of AFROTC), we were taken out to some of the important statues and historical locations on campus, such as Sully (Lawrence Sullivan Ross statue) and the West Gate Memorial. After We visited those places, we were taken to the Bonfire Memorial and told the story of Tim Kerlee, who died in the collapse. When we got back to the dorm, we were met in our holes by the sophomores, who gave us hand-down bonfire shirts. These shirts are a big deal, since they are the same ones our seniors, juniors, and sophomores wore to bonfire in the past. They also have never been washed, so they smell like a barbecue pit.

This Friday the Air Force ROTC class had nothing to do with anything we would be expected to do in the military. They took us out to the Rec center had paid for us to climb the rock wall for two hours, then said "go have fun". We had a blast. That rock wall beats the socks off of any I've done before, as it has at least ten different ways to climb, as well as obstacles like backwards angling walls, overhangs, and one spot which has a ridge you have to climb around (it's a lot harder than it sounds). By the end of that session, my arms were exhausted and they're still prone to cramping up if I grab something too hard.

Training has been going about the same as usual, though I think they're having a little more trouble finding things to smoke us about. There's been a couple of hard smokings due to a couple of my buddies doing stupid things like playing World of Warcraft during CQ, or pinning their wheets, both of which are "honor violations", the hardest category of smoking we can get. Needless to say, everyone was pretty mad when they heard about one of our buddies playing games during CQ. The most expressed sentiment is "If you're going to play games, at least aviod doing it during the time you're most likely to be caught".

Since the smokings have generally been shorter, we are now doing things like rack drills and hallway cleaning drill more often. A rack drill is where you have to remake your bed in a certain amount of time. Usually, we have about seven to eight minutes to make all the beds of the fish who are present. So far, we haven't succeeded once. We are getting closer, but I don't expect we'll actually meet one of those goals until second semester.

Speaking of second semester, did you know that I am now done with one twelfth of my Corps career? That's right, two thirds of the way through first semester and one third of the way through fish year. Can you tell I'm looking forward to Christmas break?

Besides approaching Christmas break, we're getting close to starting our push for Corps brass. Corps brass is the pin that you can see on the collar of upperclassmen, with the helmet and crossed swords. During push for brass, we will be doing a whole lot of PT and various other forms of training. It should finish up about the time of the t.u. game, so we can wear our new Corps brass to Austin. We're also going to begin training to earn the Guidon, but we won't earn that until late next semester.

We have two assignments over the weekend. The first is to obtain the largest pumkin we can physically fit into the dorm. The second is to create a "fish guidon". The fish guidon is apparently a very competitive thing among the Corps, so we're going to spend a lot of time on that over the weekend and next week. I'll try to keep you posted on how Corps brass, fish guidon, and "Mr. O'Lantern" are going, so expect an update somtime next weekend.

Various Other

During my time blogging here, I've tended to outline the bare basics of what we've been doing. Now I'd like to tell you some of the other more or less fun things we've done over the past month.

Squadron Sixteen is very much into Bonfire. By the way, you didn't hear that from me, since Bonfire is no longer university affiliated. But anyways, we've been making pots for bonfire. a pot is kinda like a hard hat, but a lot more decorated. Ours look a lot like the sweater that Charlie Brown is always wearing: black with a yellow stripe, and black zigzags inside the yellow stripe. You have no idea what chaos is until you've experienced something like that. We had to get them done over the period of a week, which turned out being a weekend. Over that weekend, we had to get paint, pots, liners, sandpaper (because the pots come with a rough texture that needs to be taken off), and a place to do it all.

Getting the supplies alone took all week, so we weren't able to do anything until after the game that was that weekend (I think it was the Army game). Those of us who had to get up for church in the morning had to finish most of the pot that night, so we were up until about three in the morning. I chose not to stay up, so I had to finish mine on Sunday afternoon, which was rough. I was, however, able to learn from my buddies' mistakes that way, which saved me a few hours along the way.

Another noteworthy event was m16 training with the Air Force. The m16 is the standard issue battle rifle for the United States armed forces, unless you actually plan on getting into combat. Then you'll use an m4, but that's another story. Anyways, for m16 training, we used rifles that had essentially been "dumbed down". They had been converted to shoot .22 caliber bullets instead of the 5.56mm rounds that they normally fire. For those that don't know guns, that's like turning on Ross's Mustang and finding out it has the engine of the Lumina. Basically, the sole purpose of the training was to familiarize us with the was the gun works, but the purpose was defeated because the converted m16's jammed about every third shot. It was a good time, but they really need to train us with real m16's, not dumbed down ones.

We've also had some good bull nights out with Squadron Sixteen as a whole. A few weeks ago was Falcon Night Out, so the entire squadron went out to bowl, then to the Chicken Oil Company for a meal. We got to meet some old "former Falcons", previous members of Squadron Sixteen. They gave us some pointers on how to be better fish, which we have since taken to heart. Basically, these nights out have been a time for the fish and sophomores to relax. Yes, I did say sophomores. Whenever they don't get time off for a while, they start getting annoying. Apparently they're people as well.

One of the pieces of advice that the former Falcons gave us was to every once in a while, do something really, incredibly stupid, and have fun doing it. We've been trying to do that ever since, but it's pretty hard to get up the courage. We did try to recon the skateboard that Mr. Campos (one of our juniors) rides up and down the hall during Call to Quarters. Unfortunately, it wouldn't fit in our lockers, so we had to give it back. One of the rules of reconning is if you can't hide it, they can take it back just as easily.

I've also been writing a lot of papers recently. Whenever we really, badly mess up the names of our upperclassmen, we have to write papers of a certain number of differences between them. Those papers can take up a lot of time, so it's advisable not to mix up names. Generally, the papers start at sixteen differences. If we mess up the names again, or do something wrong on the paper, the differences start to add up. I recently had to write two 61 difference papers at a time. Needless to say, I won't be mixing up those upperclassmen again. At least I haven't been doing as bad as Ross did (116 differences) or as badly as my buddy Brewer (160 differences). I also seem to be the only one who can tell Ross apart from Mr. Wiley and Mr. Stitt.

We've also gotten some new responsibilities. Every week, we need to write squad reports. There are six squads of fish in our class, with about four to five fish each. Every week, we need to detail what exams we have coming up, what grades we have gotten back in the past week, a personal goal for each fish, a squad goal for each squad, and a goal for our entire class. Another responsibility (well, we've had this since about the third day of FOW) is blowing calls. Before any official oufit or corps activity, we have to go to the ends of the hallway and yell at the top of our lungs the activity, ofiicer of the day, junior in charge of call to quarters, sophomore of the day, temperature, uniform of the day, and what we will be having for chow (if applicable). It's really easy to mess calls up, especially if you're easily flustered. I actually did a nearly perfect set of calls yesterday and today.

I'm still doing pretty well, and now that I've got most of the upperclassmen's names down well, I shouldn't have to write many more papers. I'm actually starting to do better on my studying (earlier in the semester I had trouble finding time) and have found some interesting sources for help (ever heard of Wikibooks? Their basic calculus textbook is easier to understand than either one I have, if less detailed). I'm really enjoying hanging out with some of my buddies on weekend nights. I was actually surprised at how many are pretty devoted to abstinence and not drinking. One of my buddies (naming no names) actually broke down in tears afte he heard his girlfriend at another university had gotten drunk. Apparently Sixteen tends to attract these kinds of people. I'm really happy with most of them.

Living for the weekend

This past couple of weeks, our class seems to have messed up a lot of things. First, it was Campusologies (campos for short). Campos are those facts about Texas A&M that all cadets are required to know, and generally learn during fish year. We have been assigned three per week since the start of the semester, and we have not yet managed to memorize all of them by the end of the week. Our Sophomores finally got mad enough about it to start making us push every time we mess up. Last training, we messed up almost every campo we were asked. That would have been the hardest training we've had yet, but we had to get ready for a march-in past Dr. Murano's (the new A&M president) house.

Also, we've been consistently messing up with the Guidon. The Guidon is the flag that is held in front of our outfit whenever we march in. The Guidon Bearer is a sophomore, and the fish are not allowed to go anywhere near him while he's holding the Guidon. You would think that a six-foot-someodd Sophomore holding a six-foot flag would be hard to miss, but he somehow manages to hide at the end of the hall behind some of his buddies. I'm pretty sure he does it intentionally, too. Guidon smokings are the hardest we've had, and we're in for some more on Monday.

On the other hand, the good bull is starting to rack up. On Tuesday night, we gave Mr. Schubert, one of our Juniors, a swirly to commemorate his birthday. While we were dragging him out of his room, Ross handed me one of his uniform parts to bargain for privileges with. This kind of dealing is called reconning, and it's something to take pride in. Usually, it's started by the fish, but I think Ross thinks we need to start pulling this kind of thing out more often. Unfortunately, we have to earn the right to bargain by doing PT. The way it goes (or so I've gathered, we haven't actually done the bargaining yet) is we push for however many privileges we can stand. Monday's going to be rough, but at least it'll be worth it.

Also, this morning, instead of normal outfit PT, we went to the Rec center and did our PT there. It was a choice of whatever you could do at 5:45 in the morning, so Ross and a couple of other upperclassmen started an indoor soccer game. That was probably the best game of soccer I've played in years. When we were done, Mr. Martin, the head yell leader and one of our Seniors, gave me and a couple of my buddies who couldn't walk very well a ride back to the dorm.

I've not had any time this week to do anything, thanks to a couple of papers I have yet to get right. I've gotten to the point where I've told Mr. Towns, the Sophomore to who I owe the papers, that he's just going to have to wait until I can can catch up on my homework. Fortunately for me, in our outfit that's a legitimate excuse. Mr. Porier, our Commanding Officer, has announced that we're pushing for the Joleen award this year. The Joleen award is the award that goes to the outfit with the best scholastics. It's very hard for our outfit to get, being an engineering outfit and still taking training seriously.

This is probably the first time this week I've had to actually goof off, so I'm enjoying it thoroughly. We also got Junior privileges from one of our Seniors because we agreed not to tackle her after Arch Yell. That means I can listen to music and play games, not wear fish dress, not get on the wall, walk in the hallways, talk in the hallways, and generally act mostly like a normal human being. It's great.

Privileges

Well, things have been going alright in the Corps so far. In fact, we've done well enough that we've earned some new "privileges". In the Corps, privileges work differently than the name implies. They're not things you can do, they're things you must do. It's also really good "bull" to get them done. Dont' worry that's not an obscene reference, it refers to good times with the upperclassmen. Usually good bull is between the fish and the seniors or juniors, and almost never with the sophomores.

So, this weekend we earned the "right" to do our first class set of pushups. For us, the class of 2012, a class set is 112 pushups. It's really hard, but they don't have to be perfect pushups. By doing our first class set, we earned our first slapboard. A slapboard is a wooden board hanging from the ceiling with mottos written on them. We have earned the slapboard closest to the stairs on the north end of the dorm. The idea behind a slapboad is that you slap it whenever you pass beneath it. It's a lot bigger deal than it sounds.

The other set of privileges we earned was a temporary set of junior privileges. We won our fish football game this weekend, so whoever showed up got the same privileges that a junior would have, such as the right to be out of uniform in the hallway, the right to walk in the hallway, and other related things. Temporary privileges are awarded based on some kind of good behavior, or (apparently) can be bargained for with a piece of upperclassmen's property (known as a recon). Another example of temporary privileges is if we catch a squirrel and bring it back to the dorm without hurting it, we get senior privileges for a week. So it's not uncommon to see fish chasing squirrels around.

I'm still doing pretty well personally. I'm enjoying being done with my history paper and I'm almost certain I aced my physics exam. I also have a math exam on Thursday, so I'm studying hard for that. I'm also likely to pass the next physical fitness test I take, shich is a big deal because I couldn't when I got here. I'm a lot better at pushups than I once was.

Football Weekend

As you may have noticed, last weekend was my first Aggie football game as a member of the Corps. With football weekends come quite a hectic schedule, though not quite as bad as the rest of the week.

The football weekend really starts on Friday night at Midnight Yell (don't bother asking what time it's at). At Midnight Yell, we get to hang out for a bit in Kyle Field and yell our heads off. We also get stories and jokes from the Yell leaders. It's a great time, but I wish it was a little earlier, because we got up at 5:15 that morning. Needess to say, on Saturday I was exhausted.

On Saturday morning we had to get up early for marching practice, since this would be our first real march in. You could tell the upperclassmen were fairly nervous from the way they frantically rearranged, reorganized, and yelled at us. Even all the practice didn't do the job, since one or two fish were still out of step during the march around Kyle. We had a brief period after the march in to gather water and tickets before going to the game itself. During that time I was supposed to get a picture with Ross and Caleb, but Ross never showed up. Apparently he had to be in "boot line", when the seniors make a path for the football players onto Kyle.

The game itself was not that great. With about ten minutes to go the Aggies were up 14-9, so all the fish started to take the brass off of their uniforms and head to the field level to tackle the Yell Leaders. When the Aggies win, the fish are supposed to chase down and tackle the Yell Leaders, then take them to the Fish Pond and throw them in. Unfortunately for us, Arkansas came back with four minutes left and all us fishies were left standing awkwardly on the edge of the field.

In other news, I've been doing a lot of boot pulling. When the seniors come back from class and want to get out of uniform, they cannot get their boots off on their own. So they call for a fish to pull boots. It's a win-win situation, since the senior can get his boots off and the ifsh is often rewarded with some candy or just some normal talking time with a senior. Occasionally they'll also give tips on uniform care or time management. It's worth the effort.

I personally am still doing fine, though I expect life is not going to be so easy for much longer. We've been having major messups all week which means we're going to get smoked a lot, and I couldn't manage to get enough pushups to pass my Physical Fitness Test, so I'm on remedial PT. That means every day I'll be getting up an hour leader and training with some really mad sophomores.

FOW over

So, I haven't posted in a while. I, as you could probably guess, have been busy. There's no possible way I could tell you all of the things I've learned in the past week (I don't remember all of them myself), but I'll give you a brief overview. By the way, don't expect many pictures. I don't have time to work with those.

Marching: We have learned to march. Marching is not as easy as it soulds. I know some people think it's all about keeping in step, but there's a lot more to it than that. There's at least nine different ways of marching we've learned, and none of them came easy. Most of them have to do with turning corners. With 31 fish in the class, the back rows can get pretty messed up on corners, so we've spent about two or three hours a day just working on corners

Talking: Any adress to an upperclassman in our outfit must be "sir sandwiched", one sir on each end of the statement. To make a statement or question, you have to say, "Sir, Mr. whoever Sir, fish Fearing requests permission to make a statement/question sir". If you don't remember their names, you have to greet them again. Sophomores get very mad when you forget their names. You can also not use personal pronouns such as I or We. You must use fish whoever or Flacon 16 fish. It makes you think hard before you talk.

Room cleaning: Everything has to be in it's own place. Beds have to be made just so, hangars hung just so, and some things go in the mos illogical places. Anything on a desk has to be "grounded" to the edge of the desk. I suppose I'll learn some shortcuts after a while, but cleaning a hole takes a long time.

Dressing: I now have four different uniforms I know how to wear. CFT's, the second easiest, are what you have seen pictures of me in during FOW. Ask my Mom if you want to see them. It's basically a white T-shirt and khaki shorts with a belt and a hat. PT gear is the easiest, just Falcon 16 shorts and shirt tucked in. We are the first fish class to be issued ACU's. That's what we're wearing in Mom's pictures of FOW friday. I alsohave some idea how to wear Bravos, the khaki uniform you always think of the Corps as wearing

No matter what Ross tell you, I am doing fine. The only real issues I have right now are learning names (everyone in the outfit needs work on that), keeping a straight face (the juniors and seniors say the strangest things while we're on the wall), and eating quickly. I'm writing this during a break between classes, then I'll meet with a buddy who has her ID card with her so I can get into the dorm.

So far I've identified a few things worth looking forward to. First, the academic day. I don't have to be in the dorm all day except classes, so that makes things much more relaxed. Second, Sunday. Church is the greatest relaxation I've had yet (I stilll have to call Ross sir, though). Third, free weekends. We had one of those recently, and it was great. I went out to eat with my buddies (anything's better than Duncan food) and just generally took a break.

Classes so far have just been "here's the syllabus, this is what it means, get out of here". Makes my life easier, to say the least.

PT and more

I may have mentioned before that the Corps will be physically challenging. Well, now I'll give you something more specific. To pass the Corps physical test, you have to make a 1 1/2 mile run in about 15 minutes, as well as 42 pushups and 50 someodd situps. Right now I can probably do the run easily, the situps barely, and nowhere near 40 pushups. So Ross has kindly allowed me to tag along when he "PT's" and push me along. It's amazingly tiring.

Here's a basic outline of what I've done as far as exercise this week, starting on Thursday.
Thursday morning: about 8:00 I was awakened and 15 minutes later we were headed out to Pecan Park to run the Lanana creek trail. Pecan is about at the halfway point, so we started off in one direction, at Ross's pace. After about the hardest 3/4 of a mile I had ever run, we reached a set of pull-up bars. Of course, we couldn't let those go unchallenged, so I did about seven, while Ross did about ten. I don't remember exactly because I was having trouble with the oxygen levels in my brain. From there we continued to run to Liberty Hall, the Southernmost extent of the trail. There, we did pushups. After about 25-30 pushups, probably less, I just about passed out from the combined effects of the running, pushups, and having not eaten yet that day. After I revived a bit, we headed back north to Pecan, at my pace this time. Needless to say, it took us much longer to get to Pecan than it took to get to Liberty Hall.

Friday morning: I got up a bit earlier on Friday, mostly so that I could prepare for the day. This time I took Ross's advice and had some blueberry-lemon bread for a snack before we left. I also took the opportunnity to make some gatorade. Then we headed back out to Pecan to run Lanana again, but with a change: this time we did the whole thing. We started off heading south, through SFA down to the post office. That part of the trail is the least shaded, so we did it as early as possible. By the time we reached Pecan again, I was lagging badly with the entire north end of the trail to go. Ross, wanting to get his whole run in, told me I needed only to run until I met him coming back down the trail, then turn around. The only condition he added to that was that if I didn't get far enough, we would do sprints. More on those later. I did, however, survive the run, and go quickly enough to avoid sprinting.

Saturday morning: This morning, we went to the farmers market before delivering Mom to the gym and heading off to the SFA stadium. We got a few peaches and a very ripe cantaloupe.
At the stadium, Ross declared his intention to push me really hard. To that end, we warmed up (!) with a short, easy mile run. Then, it was off to the sprints. The objective of a sprint is to run the length of a football field as fast as possible, stopping at regular intervals to do pushups, situps, etc.
Ross taught me this really cool thing called a diamond. Basically, it's a pushups where your hands are together and your thumb and first finger form a diamond. Like a pushup, but lots harder. We did four of these sprints, then caught our breath for a couple minutes.
Then we did what Ross calls "suicides" (insert doom music here). A suicide is a set of short sprints, first to the ten yard line, then the twenty, then the thirty, touching each line with your hand. The name is quite descriptive of how it feels.
After the suicides, we cooled down by walking a slow lap of the track. Ross and I were both sick (litterally) of situps, Ross slightly more so than me. We did manage to make it home without incident though.

After having finally asked Ross how this compares to Corps PT, he said it's the same stuff, but more of it. It's gonna be rough.

I did finally get my Eagle Scout Board of Review last night, so I am officially an Eagle Scout! That means I'll get at least a small scholarship as well as the priviledge of wearing the medal on my uniform.

Life Changing Events (part 2)

The next big thing in my life is that I have FINALLY gotten all the requirements for my Eagle Scout rank finished. And not a moment too soon. All I have left to do is my Eagle Board of review. At the Eagle Boar, they ask you questions about the scout skills you've learned, about your Eagle project, and some general life questions. This is not some wimpy "Hi-all-your-requirements-are-done-we-pass-you" sort of thing. If you aren't up to speed on skills, your project, or especially life in general, the board will not pass you.

As many of you know (and many don't), my Eagle project was building props for the ballet teacher in town. Our troop with help from a carpenter friend of ours built two "houses" with three walls and a roof out of 2x2 lumber and plywood. They were designed with the dimensions of a pickup truck in mind, so they can be taken apart, transported, and put back together fairly easily, if not especially quickly. The previous props that had been used were a pile of particle board on the floor of a shed, so the point of the new props was to make them last a few years. Oddly enough, the ballet teacher in question announced her retirement about four days before the recital. Life is just weird, isn't it?

Oh, and I also turned 18 yesterday. Is that enough of a life change for you?

Life Changing Events (Part 1)

First, before the post really begins, I'd like to share a bit of trivia. Take a look at my profile. Notice at the end of my comments is a big loud AAAAAAY! That is known as wildcatting. It's a thing you do at the end of yells and when your class year is mentioned. I'm a freshman, so my wildcat is arms up in the air yelling AAAAAAY!

Last week was a big one for me. I don't mean that in a small, insignificant way. I mean that in a serious, big time, probable-life-changing sort of way. What happened? New Student conference.

New Student Conference is the "event" that starts off the career of a freshman at A&M. Basically it's a seminar designed to keep the average freshman informed of his opportunities. They tell you what kind of bus services, financial aid services, get-out-of-debt services, food service, keep-yourself-fit services, internet services, honors programs, academic advising, fish camp, intramural sports, diversity training(!) and a host of other things. It kinda reminds me of all the services that came with my computer. Lots of cool stuff, but very little of it applies to me. After all, I'm not your average freshman. I'm a freshman in the Corps.

Most of the time I spent listening politely to statements that sounded about as interesting as your average senator. The one big important thing I got done was signing up for the Corps officially, which included ROTC signup (Ross is going to hate me - I went Air Force) and getting fit for my uniforms.

Here I am in my uniform (minus brass and belt).

Yes, it is sideways, and yes, the quality is lousy.













With getting the uniform fitted came the fitting of the low quarters (uniform shoes) and standard army boots. Meaning I now get to wear them in. You have no idea how uncomfortable that is at times, but it's getting better.

Also at New Student Conference, I signed up for my first semester courses. Amazingly enough, I got EVERY SINGLE ONE I WANTED! That's a big deal, especially considering we were running kindof late from uniform fitting, and all the signups happen at the same time.

For the other big life changing event, stay tuned until later this week when it's official (more or less)

Introduction

Howdy! You may have noticed a couple of things about me. First, I am no longer Admiral Nelson. Why did I change? A couple of issues. First, there's a lot of Admiral Nelsons out there. Second, a lot of the places I frequent have a character limit on names, and Admiral Nelson was just too long. Third, I really like the postcards of Sandra Boynton. Take a look at them someday.

The next thing is a couple of announcements. First up, the issue of posting. I'm going to be a fish in the Corps this fall, and a chemical engineering fish at that! I may have trouble posting regularly, but I will certainly try to post once a week. Second, if you notice any Corps terms you don't recognize, feel free to ask (I might actually enlighten you). Third, I may eventually include links to other blogs, but for now the only one you need to watch is Petr's, since it has all the links you'll ever need. Fourth, just because I can find time to blog doesn't mean I'll be able to read everyone else's.

That's it for the announcements. Enjoy the show, and remember to turn off your cell phone.