Combat Water Survival Training

Let me just start off with saying that the physical aspect of Air Force is easy peasy compared to Army.  LOL

 So to end off my second week in ROTC, we had Combat Water Survival Training (CWST) this morning.  Now I knew we were going to be doing stuff in a pool with our ACUs on and I was actually looking forward to it.  Well let me tell you now that this is not one of the easier trainings we have to do this semester.  Land Navigation is a piece of cake compared to this stuff. Anywho let me explain what CWST is.  It is a requirement of all ROTC cadets.  The first part is to jump from 3 meters into water blindfolded.  Once you hit the water you can remove the blindfold and swim out.  The second part we have to demonstrate the removal of our gear while submerged.  If your head comes above the water before your gear is off you have to do it again.  The third part is to swim 25 meters (remember this is all with full ACUs).  The forth part is to swim 15 meters with your gear while holding your rifle above water.  And lastly (does it sound tough yet???) we had to tread in water for FIVE minutes.  Yeah treading in water doesn't seem to hard but after you've done the first four parts, your uniform feels pretty heavy in that water.

3 meter jump blindfolded

So the 3 meter jump was pretty easy.  I will admit I got kinda of nervous as I blindly walked off the diving board into "unknown" waters.  But that was the easiest part I'd say.  The second part, removing the gear was pretty okay.  As soon as they pushed me into the water I repositioned my arms to be inside the straps so all I had to do is extend my arms upward and the gear fell right off.  The third part I did was the 15 meter full gear swim.  This part I failed the first time.  I got half way and swallowed water and I panicked.  I immediately let go of my rifle and flailed over to the side of the pool gasping for breath.  It really isn't an easy task when your weight is almost doubling with soaked ACUs gear with full canteens AND a rifle.  Luckily we weren't allowed with our boots in the pool (school rules) and I was able to use my light tennis shoes but with any shoes period it's hard because it's adding weight to your body.  The main reason why I failed is because my swim technique was off.  When swimming with full gear you have to be as parallel to the water as possible to shift the weight around evenly.  You also have to take big breaths.  The more air in your body the better you'll float.  I practiced this technique with no gear during the 25 meter swim.  Once I finished the 25 meter swim I came back to do the 15 meter gear and rifle swim again.  My technique was great the first half of the swim and then  I couldn't hold my rifle up any longer.  BUT I didn't give up.  I still had my rifle in hand but just wasn't above the water.  I trucked it out and got across to the 15 meter line.  (I seriously used all I had and it was written all across my face lol).

jumping in for the 15 meter swim

Removing gear while submerged

 By this time my body was so exhausted and ready to hit the showers and take a nap!  But nope!  Still had to do the 5 minute tread.  I thought I was gonna pass out on this one.  Luckily though we were aloud to float as well.  I made through the whole 5 minutes because of the wonderful float technique!  Thank goodness!  We ended our PT session with 10 pushups and 10 situps.  (I think this was by far the easiest part of the morning even with being super exhausted with all the water exercises.)  Many people had to redo certain parts.  Some even failed the parts completely.  I think I did pretty good for my first time.  Anywho just thought I'd give you guys a taste of CWST.  We will be doing this once a month.  I don't think I will be as "excited" as I was this time but I am looking forward to getting better at these exercises so that I only do each just once lol.  The pictures provided are not from my company but I found them online so you can see some of the stuff we did this morning.  Enjoy and have a great weekend!

15 meter swim

treading water for 5 minutes

Wipe the sweat and keep truckin

So my PT test wasn't the greatest today.  I failed :(  I missed the situps by one but that was my own fault for not looking at what score I needed to pass.  I surely could have pushed out one more but I was thinking passing was 38 situps so I was good with 49...nope!  Passing is 50 situps.  Pushups was fine...35.  And oh boy...the run.  Well I was doing great the first 6 laps 2 minutes or less per lap and then as I was curving my 7th lap, I felt a sharp pain like a knife digging deep into my rib cage.  Yep...it was a cramp.  And boy was that thing fierce!  I could hardly breathe.  I tried to stick it out and keep running but nope, my body wasn't having it.  I walked that 7th lap having to stop about 3 times just to stop myself from curling into a fetal position (Trust me those cramps hurt bad!) It started to go away as I started my last lap so crazy me decided to sprint to catch up on lost time...NOPE!  As soon as I got 3/4 around the lap the evil cramp returned but I didn't stop running.  I pinched my right side and kept running even though I felt like I was dying lol.  Didn't do much for me because my two miles came out to 21:07 and you need a 19:36 just to get a 60.

I'm not sure why my body decided to cramp on the day I needed it to work.  I ran 2.5 miles this past Friday just fine.  As a matter of fact I was doing great on the run.  I would have finished with around 16 minutes for both miles if I didn't get that cramp.  It really took a toll on me.  I was really bummed afterwards and was so mad at myself.  Did I hydrate enough?  Did I stretch enough?  Was I breathing right?  My answer to all this was yes but what can you do when you get a cramp like that?  And the crazy thing is after I finished about 15 minutes later, the cramp was completely gone.  I felt like running the two miles all over again just to prove I can do it.

But in the end I just have to suck it up...realize I may have lost that battle but I'm not going to lose the war.  Tomorrow I'll be back on the track working on my sprinting to get my stamina up.  Maybe that way I won't cramp up again. 

Army vs. Air Force

My first full week of school is over and I have to be honest, it sure has taken a toll on me!  Between classes and my ROTC schedule I am crazy busy.  I get up at 4 every morning and have barely enough energy to do my wifely duties around the house before climbing into bed around 8:30-9 exhausting.  I had a headache three days in a row and I do believe it's because of how my daily routine has changed so drastically.  Nevertheless, I'm extremely happy about the change.  My life is back on the move again, doing bigger and better things than before.

My classes have gotten off on a great start.  I have some programming homework to finish today but other than that, I'm scotch free the rest of the weekend which means...time to catch up on cleaning this house!  (Which I've already started on early this morning lol)  ROTC has been going great too.  I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to keep up in PT but I've been doing better than I expected.  I love the fact that I'm back to being active mentally and physically.  I believe both of these are needed in order to maintain a balanced life.  PT is really a love/hate relationship.  I hate waking up so early and working out beyond exhaustion but after it's all said and done I feel awesome and proud of myself.  Yesterday we did a  company run around the school about 2.5 miles total.  Mind you, this is my first "long" run in over three years.  Believe or not I didn't fall out and I was actually ahead of the company since I was doing road guard duty.  Now I'm not gonna lie, my lungs were on the floor by the end of the run but the important thing is I didn't give up.  =)

This makes me feel pretty confident because Monday we have our APFD which pretty much means practice PT test.  I know I'm not at the point of maxing out on points but I'm at least confident that I will pass each section just fine.  I have plenty of time to work my way up to a 300 since our real APFT isn't until Sept 27.  I will admit the Army is more strenuous with PT than the Air Force.  In the Air Force ROTC we only have to complete one PFT a semester.  In the Army ROTC, we do one once a month.  Also, the Air Force is only 1.5 miles, 1 minute situps, 1 minute push-ups.  The Army is 2 miles, 2 minutes situps, and 2 minute pushups.  Oh and another thing...the Army situps are different than Air Force.  In the Air Force, we did our situps with our hands crossed in front of us.  The Army does them with your hands behind your head.  I don't really understand this concept because to me it just puts more stress on your neck but oh well...rules are rules right?

Well wish me luck everyone!  I will break the news of my APFD scores Monday.  Hopefully I do well.  =)

Arrogant and Negative people

If there are two things I hate most...it would be:

A. People who only talk about the negative in their life and think the whole world wants to attack them.
(and)
B. People who think their life is just soooo much better than everyone else and make a point to try and shove their "successes" in your face.



When I see people talk so negative about their lives, I feel sad for them because instead of focusing on the good, they want to breathe and live in the bad.  Everyone is going to have bad days or even a bad few months.  These are called struggles which we can only overcome by thinking positively and looking forward to a brand new day ahead of us.

Also...people that love to say things like "mine over yours" blah blah blah.  What is that supposed to mean? I guess in that person's opinion their stuff is better than mine but my response to that is: "Do you want a cookie for that?"  Because seriously, in reality no one really gives a rats behind if you think your stuff/life/etc is better than theirs.  In fact it may just end your friendship with that person. 

Anywho...I'm in no way upset today.  These are just random thoughts running through my head today since I was thinking about things I've heard people say to me in the past. 

What am I trying to say with all this?  Appreciate what you have and be humble about it! 

The letter E is a number???

"Whaaaaaaaaaa" *In my Minion voice*

I'm up early this morning...the hubs got home from PT with his eyes swollen.  Apparently he used my acne face cream and got it in his eyes so by the time he got home both were swollen! lol  Ok back to the subject of the day.....

How the letter E is a number is still a mystery...or X or Y or B or M!  And unfortunately I will have to learn understand this concept in the coming months.  My first day of classes didn't go so bad considering I only had two classes: Intro to Algorithms (which I have a professor with a sense of humor that deeply concerns me) and Calculus with Applications.  As I was sitting in my Calculus class waiting for the professor to walk in, I stared blankly at our assignment for the night which I printed out before leaving home.  At that point I began to sweat lol.  Slope/Interceptions; Domains, Ranges, Non-linear functions; Asymptotes.....the list goes on...I literally had no clue how to solve any of these problems.  Knowing that I haven't had math for 4 years now, I was beginning to question whether I should even be in this class.  I began to get discouraged as I thought of how to drop this REQUIRED class and retake Algebra and Trig again which would ultimately set me back on my already delayed schedule to graduate....

Next thing I knew the professor walked in with a great big smile on her face.  She's a slim matured woman with short grey hair accented with frosty whites.  Her presence calmed me down a little as she began to explain the steps of our class and how she knows many of us have probably not taken a math class in a while being that the majority of us were Juniors and Seniors.  (wheeewwww)  As we started to go over the math problems for the night I started to got more confident.  I could literally feel a tiny Windows NT (if you have a crazy look right now...that's a very old and obsolete operating system)  computer turn on in the back of my head searching for all this long lost information and before I knew it I was solving the problems!  Whooohooo!  I stumbled on a few problems but for the most part I got the jist of our assignment that night.  I was very proud of myself but I'm not gonna lie, I did have a migraine before the end of class.  It took a toll on my brain...downloading past knowledge on the subject and uploading new information.  The crazy thing is we are just on the refresher section which means this class will slowly begin to get more difficult.  But I'm alright with it...it's not learning if I don't get introduced to new topics!  So I say bring it on Calc!

Today I have my programming lab and ROTC.  Wish me luck!

Jitters are back!

So tomorrow I am officially back in the game!  Education game that is!  My stomach is all in knots and I have no idea why!  I mean it's not like this is my first time going to a different school or even a different college.  And it's not like I don't already have a feel of what my classes will be like so what is the fuss Beba!

It could be that it's my first time going out-of-state (Florida I mean) and on my own....plus the husby of course!  Since I left the "nest", everything has been a new adventure.  Which I guess jitters do go hand in hand with trying new things even if the actual adventure isn't really that new.  UNCP is a bit different from UCF and even Valencia.  It's way smaller than either and I've never had to drive through two whole towns to get to school either lol.  But with jitters or not, I know I'm ready to get back to the books.  I love learning and doing new things.  My two semester vacation has been great and all but I need more than just sleeping in and being lazy all day.

I've decided to not take a light load this semester.  By all means, I'm not working so why should I right?  A total of 17 credits.  Here are the classes on this semesters schedule.  Wish me luck everyone!

-Intro to Programming (This should be easy)

- Intro to Algorithms

- Website Development

- Calculus with Applications

- Military Science II (Army ROTC)

Something old...Something new!

So yesterday was a very filled schedule for me.  I had my student orientation in the morning for UNCP and it went very well aside from not being able to sign up for a few classes.  The first couple of hours they introduced all us transfer students to the services available to us and then we moved on to speaking with an adviser.  I only had to spend less than 5 minutes with my adviser though.  She was so shocked and awed at how prepared I was, I had already had my desired schedule written down and taken care of the few overrides I knew I needed for the classes I wanted.  After my little chat with the adviser I went and registered for my classes.  I was able to register for 4 of my classes except the two main classes I need this semester.  They are have a co-enrollment requirement which means I can't sign up for one without the other.  One of the classes is already filled so I can't sign up for the other class which still has seats available.  =/  I emailed my Department Chair though so I'm crossing my fingers that he can send an override to get me into the class that's closed.
Oh yes!  And an update from my meeting with the Department Chair last week...I was able to transfer two of the four classes I had asked for which is a miracle!  I'm glad because that's two less major requirement classes that I have to take.  I'm still missing too many classes to graduate in two years but at least I have 60 credits total that transferred over so I don't need to do any electives.  =)
After registration, I headed off to the cafeteria to eat lunch and then got stuck in that building because it was raining MRAPs and Humvees outside lol.  They had a bunch of tables set up from different organizations and Greeks trying to recruit.  One of the tables was the Army ROTC table.  As I walked by the guy at the table asked if I wanted to join the Army.  LOL  I looked at him and said "I'm already signed up and I'll be started this Wednesday."  We got to talking about the class and how I ended up in North Carolina.  I mentioned my husband moving from the 173rd in Bamberg and he immediately yelled out "No way!" and showed me his combat patch.  Well I'll be damned he was a Sky Soldier!  Our conversation lasted another 15 minutes or so lol.  God knows I can brag about my Sky Soldiers until the lights go out haha.  It was nice to meet someone though.  At least I won't be totally nervous my first day of class because I'll know someone.  =)
NEXT my husband and I were off with our lovely neighbors Bexaida and Destiny to welcome home Bexi's husband from Afghanistan.  It was a great homecoming and it gave me a chance to practice my photo shooting.  I can't say I'll ever be a professional photographer but it sure was fun.  Here are a couple pics from this emotional and exciting moment for all of us.  (My editing is pretty cheap but I don't have a professional photo editor....yet!)  =P  Enjoy!