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.