As you may have noticed from my recent posts, things are getting a lot more relaxed around here. On Wednesday we dropped with our Juniors. What was supposed to happen was we were going to "air them out" a Corps term for a surprise wakeup call, usually applied to fish. What really happened was we started yelling and busting open doors, only to realize there was no one there. The Juniors promptly came upstairs from one of the third deck rooms and started smoking us. It's apparently a Falcon tradition. After a couple of hours of PT, we dropped with our Juniors, and can now call them by their first names.
Another thing that happened was that the Sophomores earned their white belts. That means that they can now legitimately laugh and make jokes in front of us. It's actually pretty annoying, because one sophomore in particular likes to just stand in front of me and grin. It's impossible to not crack up when that happens. Just yesterday they were in front of the dorm playing golf with fruit. Some of them are actually pretty good at it.
On Friday, for training, we had "fish interviews". Basically, we were informed that this would be an important part of our Corps career, and that we should take them seriously. Uniform was Midnights with service cover and white gloves (the best possible uniform for those not in the band). We were told that everything had to be perfect, so many people spent all day working on uniforms, and most of us went to the length of getting our shoes re-tapped to make them completely perfect. Then we get to the interview, and one by one, every five minutes, a person was called out to go downstairs and be interviewed. When it was my turn, I arrived downstairs and was greeted by most of the upperclassmen, grinning, yelling, and asking questions such as "who is the best-looking senior, fish, junior, and sophomore". At the end, they asked me who I wanted to chew out. Upon my answer, that person stood up and I got to chew him out. You have no idea what awkward is until you get to chew out an upperclassman. It's just plain wierd.
Many things are being passed down in the Corps these days, one of which is the Aggie mascot. I have a class with the new Mascot Corporal, so I se Revielle a lot these days. She gets into class and promptly falls asleep. Apparently the things required to become Mascot Corporal are some of the toughest sets of PT and character analysis in the Corps. Some of the things I have been told about include some serious paper-writing, interviews, and a lot of PT (duh).
By the way, Peter, if you tell any of this to your buddies if and when you're a fish, you're personally smoked. It ruins the experience for both us and you.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
WAX PARTY!!!
One of the things that the Corps, and especially squadron 16, prides itself in is professionalism. As a part of that, we cannot "know" our upperclassmens' names or address them except with a 'sir' on each end of the statement. It's a part of the normal training process for fish. Only at the end of fish year do upperclassmen start "dropping" or using first names, with fish. Apparently, we have reached that point in the year.
The event had been semi-revealed to us at the beginning of the week. At outfit meeting on Sunday evening, they told us that we would not be going anywhere Thursday night, even though there were no classes or Corps events on Friday. The last time that happened, we got our Corps Brass. Additionally, they canceled a pizza/movie party we were going to have that evening with Captain Mack, one of the Air Force officers and our military advisor.
After dinner on Thursday night (free flow!) we were led upstairs into our fourth floor hallway. The first indication that I had that something was different about the hallway was the sophomores telling us not to run when we went inside. When we reached the top, we found our normally good-looking hallway covered in mud. When most people say covered, they mean just a large amount of mud, or mostly covered, or mud everywhere. In our hallway, there was literally a half-inch of mud on the floor. There was also a good portion of mud on the walls, and even some on the ceiling. Our task: to make the hall spotless. Fast forward from 7:00 to 9:45. Once the hall was clean, we were told to change into Corps sweats and polish the hall with our bodies (polish was provided by sophomores with half-gallon jugs). There's just no way to describe how that went without pictures. I might put some up later, provided I can get my hands on the pictures.
After polishing the hall (and being the buffers for the seniors doing buffer races) we went out behind the dorm and dropped with our seniors. If it sounds anticlimactic, it wasn't. It's one of those Corps things that really is hard to explain to anyone not in the Corps, but running around in sprinklers, soaked with floor polish from head to foot (that stuff stings badly when you get it wet) yelling your hometown, major, and name at people is a big deal. It's senior drop.
So, now that we're on a first-name basis with our seniors, we can treat them like friends and upperclassmen, as opposed to just upperclassmen. The difference? No 'sir', no greeting in the hallway, no Corps games with the seniors (and only the seniors for now). We treat everyone else the same as before.
Travis Kennedy and John Busch (Corps candidates) won Junior Yell Leader. Hard work apparently can make history. Go figure.
The event had been semi-revealed to us at the beginning of the week. At outfit meeting on Sunday evening, they told us that we would not be going anywhere Thursday night, even though there were no classes or Corps events on Friday. The last time that happened, we got our Corps Brass. Additionally, they canceled a pizza/movie party we were going to have that evening with Captain Mack, one of the Air Force officers and our military advisor.
After dinner on Thursday night (free flow!) we were led upstairs into our fourth floor hallway. The first indication that I had that something was different about the hallway was the sophomores telling us not to run when we went inside. When we reached the top, we found our normally good-looking hallway covered in mud. When most people say covered, they mean just a large amount of mud, or mostly covered, or mud everywhere. In our hallway, there was literally a half-inch of mud on the floor. There was also a good portion of mud on the walls, and even some on the ceiling. Our task: to make the hall spotless. Fast forward from 7:00 to 9:45. Once the hall was clean, we were told to change into Corps sweats and polish the hall with our bodies (polish was provided by sophomores with half-gallon jugs). There's just no way to describe how that went without pictures. I might put some up later, provided I can get my hands on the pictures.
After polishing the hall (and being the buffers for the seniors doing buffer races) we went out behind the dorm and dropped with our seniors. If it sounds anticlimactic, it wasn't. It's one of those Corps things that really is hard to explain to anyone not in the Corps, but running around in sprinklers, soaked with floor polish from head to foot (that stuff stings badly when you get it wet) yelling your hometown, major, and name at people is a big deal. It's senior drop.
So, now that we're on a first-name basis with our seniors, we can treat them like friends and upperclassmen, as opposed to just upperclassmen. The difference? No 'sir', no greeting in the hallway, no Corps games with the seniors (and only the seniors for now). We treat everyone else the same as before.
Travis Kennedy and John Busch (Corps candidates) won Junior Yell Leader. Hard work apparently can make history. Go figure.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Fishead Training and Run-offs
It doesn't feel like much has happened since last week, but in reality, we've reached the last stage of being a fish. On Tuesday morning, we went on a run to earn the guidon. I wish it had been some hard task or other, but because everyone had to stay in on the run, it was probably the easiest PT I've done since last semester. I'm not even kidding. We ran the normal course of a Corps Run (about 2-2 1/2 miles) in about 25-30 minutes. In comparison, when we did the Bloody Cross (a 5k or 3 miles) we came in at about nineteen minutes. I know that it sounds wierd that I would want to do harder stuff, but getting the guidon is a big thing. After the run was over, the three "guidon brothers" were announced. Of those three, one will be the actual guidon bearer, and the other two will be his backups. Whenever we go to formation or on a rn, one of them is carrying the actual outfit guidon. The rest of us are back to normal PT now.
The other major thing that started this week is fishead (pronounced fish head) training. Essentially, at each chow, and when we're at formation, several fish are selected to be sophomores for that training event. The purpose of this is to train us in training people. The objective is to be more familiar with training procedures when it's time to train our fish (scary thought, that).
In other news, last Friday we caught a squirrel. The tradition is that if the fish catch a squirrel and deliver it to the commanding officer, they get senior privileges for a week. The reason we didn't is because we only caught it because it came up to our floor for some reason. We were back from Friday morning PT and all of a sudden, a squirrel jumps out of the trash can. We did, however, get priviliges for Monday and Tuesday (which got taken away Monday night because of smart people doing really stupid things).
In other news, today is run-off elections for Student Body President and the junior yell leaders. The three senior yell leaders are Weston Wilcox, Casey Schaeffer, and Reagan Thompson. Reagan is a bit of a stand-out, since he's not a member of the Corps. There's a lot of cadets who are just as mad as they can be, especially among the fish, since a non-reg now gets to wear things that a normal cadet could only wear after two years of Corps life. Since he's a senior yell leader, he also doesn't have to go through many of the things Casey and Weston went through. The general opinion among the Corps is that Reagan hasn't earned his position as yell leader and is going to have a hard time proving that he deserves it. The good news, however, is that the write-in candidate for junior yell, John Busch, reached the run-off election with 39% of the vote as compared to about 18% for his nearest competitor (who, incedentally, is no longer campaigning because his twin, who also was running, didn't make it). Most of us figure that the Corps will easily take the junior yell positions.
The other major thing that started this week is fishead (pronounced fish head) training. Essentially, at each chow, and when we're at formation, several fish are selected to be sophomores for that training event. The purpose of this is to train us in training people. The objective is to be more familiar with training procedures when it's time to train our fish (scary thought, that).
In other news, last Friday we caught a squirrel. The tradition is that if the fish catch a squirrel and deliver it to the commanding officer, they get senior privileges for a week. The reason we didn't is because we only caught it because it came up to our floor for some reason. We were back from Friday morning PT and all of a sudden, a squirrel jumps out of the trash can. We did, however, get priviliges for Monday and Tuesday (which got taken away Monday night because of smart people doing really stupid things).
In other news, today is run-off elections for Student Body President and the junior yell leaders. The three senior yell leaders are Weston Wilcox, Casey Schaeffer, and Reagan Thompson. Reagan is a bit of a stand-out, since he's not a member of the Corps. There's a lot of cadets who are just as mad as they can be, especially among the fish, since a non-reg now gets to wear things that a normal cadet could only wear after two years of Corps life. Since he's a senior yell leader, he also doesn't have to go through many of the things Casey and Weston went through. The general opinion among the Corps is that Reagan hasn't earned his position as yell leader and is going to have a hard time proving that he deserves it. The good news, however, is that the write-in candidate for junior yell, John Busch, reached the run-off election with 39% of the vote as compared to about 18% for his nearest competitor (who, incedentally, is no longer campaigning because his twin, who also was running, didn't make it). Most of us figure that the Corps will easily take the junior yell positions.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Guidon Candidacy
Now that the fish class is an official part of the outfit, we are doing some new things. First, as stated before, we have junior priviliges for the week. That's going really well. It's quite relaxing to be able to walk in the hallway. That being said, we're still at the bottom of the pole, and we still have training meals and stuff like that where we have to act like fish. We were given a nice little framed certificate that we have completed outfit brass, and the brass itself. Outfit brass is virtually indistinguishable from Corps brass, with one exception. The brass in question is a crossed sword and fasces (if you don't know what that is, ask your ancient history teacher) under a shield with a helmet. The difference is that when the brass is on your collar (your left side, or the right side when someone is facing you) the helmet on Corps brass faces towards your back, and the helmet on the outfit brass faces forward. I may at some point take pictures to illustrate the point.
The really big thing we're doing now is Guidon candidacy. The guidon is the flag that is at the front of each outfit during a march-in or Corps run. Typically, when you watch a march-in, it will be the smallest flag held by an outfit. To be the guidon bearer is a position that holds much respect. It means that you have been determined to be the most capable of representing your outift in terms of physical fitness and other qualifications determined by the outfit. Right now, to earn the guidon, we are doing the most demanding exercises we have ever done. Currently, whenever we go running, we have to high-port (hold over our heads) a broom. Whenever we do pushups, we hold the broom upright with one arm and do pushups with the other. In case you're wondering, it's nigh impossible unless you're really good at pushups. I'm not. The person who will be guidon bearer should be announced at parent's weekend. I'm pretty sure (within one or two people) who will get to take guidon.
In the meantime, everything's fairly relaxed here. My only difficulty right now is reminding myself to study, now that the nine hours of personal study time has been reduced to five. I did, however, get a 95 on my last Political Science test. I'm pretty pumped about that. We get to take a day off of formation for every A we get in a three-hour course.
The really big thing we're doing now is Guidon candidacy. The guidon is the flag that is at the front of each outfit during a march-in or Corps run. Typically, when you watch a march-in, it will be the smallest flag held by an outfit. To be the guidon bearer is a position that holds much respect. It means that you have been determined to be the most capable of representing your outift in terms of physical fitness and other qualifications determined by the outfit. Right now, to earn the guidon, we are doing the most demanding exercises we have ever done. Currently, whenever we go running, we have to high-port (hold over our heads) a broom. Whenever we do pushups, we hold the broom upright with one arm and do pushups with the other. In case you're wondering, it's nigh impossible unless you're really good at pushups. I'm not. The person who will be guidon bearer should be announced at parent's weekend. I'm pretty sure (within one or two people) who will get to take guidon.
In the meantime, everything's fairly relaxed here. My only difficulty right now is reminding myself to study, now that the nine hours of personal study time has been reduced to five. I did, however, get a 95 on my last Political Science test. I'm pretty pumped about that. We get to take a day off of formation for every A we get in a three-hour course.
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