Tag Archives: Charleston

Thanksgiving

4 Dec

Petty Officer'ed Up

Well, this has been an interesting Thanksgiving. Yesterday, when I was getting my haircut after being yelled out by annoying third class for my hair touching my ears, the barber lady, Stephanie, invited me to her family’s Thanksgiving. It seemed a little strange, but there was no way I’d turn down a homecooked meal. My fears were put to rest as soon as I met her family — an eclectic mixture of people that were pretty awesome to hang out with. The food was fantastic and I actually enjoyed myself the whole time. Good stuff. It’s not home, and it’s not my family, but it was way better than eating frozen turkey at the galley.

Otherwise, things have been pretty good. Kicking it for the most part. I haven’t updated in large part because I’ve put in 140 hours to Skyrim, a super nerdy video game that consumed my soul since it’s release. But I burned myself out so it’s back to trying to get in shape again. The Navy is great for making you not want to work out.

Leave was good. I pretty much did nothing all day every day and it was fantastic. It was 10 days of me ignoring the world, sleeping in, and eating delicious food. (Yes, Kara, I remembered to mention you!) I have leave upcoming two weeks into Power School, meaning I’ll probably do the same, though if I am motivated enough, I’ll tour around Texas and see Emily, Mella, and a few others.

How can I be healthy when I have places that make a sandwich that looks like this?

As for now, we’re standing watches on what it called T-Track, or Transition Track, which basically means I ask if people have cell phones or often just stand there looking like I have a purpose. Lots of cleaning involved too. I’m still not really enjoying the nuclear field, even though I’m good at it. Yesterday I finally got to resubmitting my officer’s package, though it’ll take a while to get it all set up. I figure there’s no harm in trying and seeing what I can do. If I make supply officer, I’d be really happy. Then again, just as before, I’m terrified of OCS, Officer Candidate School, which is run by Marines and probably a lot tougher than bootcamp — and now I’m in pretty bad shape compared to when I first entered. Oh well, if I put my mind to something, I can make it happen. It just might suck in the mean time.

I still have a lot of dreams, and I’m committed to them, so no matter how long it takes, I’ll keep trying. But, until then, I’m just going to continue doing my thing as Third Class Petty Officer. (The phrase “Take it like a third class” is used pretty often around here.)

All in all though, I’m pretty content with things right now. I’ll probably update this before the new year, but we’ll see!

Hurricane Irene

27 Aug

Irene turns dress whites into dress browns

So Hurricane Irene is kind of a joke. At least it is here. The command had been telling us we’d have to evac to Fort Whatever and that we’d be flooded out. We got out early on Friday and it rained for a while and the power went out. But it came back on and by 1600 it had stopped raining completely. Which meant we instantly got dressed and went to Hooters and got drunk and wing fed. After that our hurricane party took us to downtown Charleston. I have no idea how much money we spent (like 100 dollars alone at Market Street Saloon) but we were a force to be reckoned with. More so than Irene at least. Actually, I think we drank a few Irene hurricanes last night…

I think we were both "that guy" last night.

Although I should be studying more, I’m studying less and less and doing fine (at least until Tuesday’s test…). I don’t really mind this place when I’m not doing 18 or 20 hour days, but it’s not the best. The weekend sounds so amazing on Wednesday and by Friday I’m so tired it’s hard for me to muster up much of an effort. That said, we did a fairly good job of getting ridiculous yesterday. Wilson got ridiculously drunk and threw up in his own car, which is awesome. I hope he’s out there cleaning it right now (it’s like 100 degrees and sunny — ouch). And I finally got some pizza that wasn’t from our galley.

Today I’m doing absolutely nothing. And it feels great. Think I should go get groceries at some point. Hrm, yeah, guess I’ll do that.

Droppin’ Warheads on Foreheads

17 Jul

Getting lunch on the beach at Isle of Palms

Well, I’m back in touch with technology and finally at my command here in beautiful, swampy Charleston, SC (or more specifically Naval Weapons Station in Goose Creek, SC). So far, it’s been really nice, but I haven’t done anything yet class wise, so who knows.

Boot camp in Great Lakes, IL was pretty interesting as an experience. The first few days (and specifically, the first 40 hours) were intense and I just kept thinking to myself, “What the hell am I doing here?” It slowly got better after that, but overall I would say it sucked pretty hard. I spent most of my day standing at attention or sitting awkwardly on the ground cross-legged. My back hurt so much and even at taps (when we get in bed) the racks we slept in had about a 2 inch mattress.

For the most part, I stood around thinking, “Well, this is annoying…” and “When is chow?” — boot camp is a mental thing and much less of a physical thing, though beatings were pretty common. Beatings, if you haven’t figured out, are punishments for making mistakes that involve you doing a lot of eight-count pushups and mountain climbers (and sometimes doing it to Miley Cyrus’ “Another Mountain”!). Google them to see how fun they look. In general, I avoided getting beaten and managed to stay back. But, on one of my four hour compartment watches, I accidentally called a Chief a Petty Officer. The result was not good. I ended up getting dropped for about 30-40 minutes. I’m not sure how long it was, but it felt like hours. I was not a fan.

Liberty with my Dad

A lot of it was fun looking back, though not particularly while I was doing it. The RDCs (Recruit Division Commanders — basically drill instructors) were pretty much the funniest guys I could imagine. The things they said were hilarious, but we weren’t allowed to laugh for the first few weeks, and that proved to be a problem for some. After a while, it became less strict and we were able to laugh freely. Probably the most memorable saying was

I don’t give a fuck. Shit ain’t real!

Although personally, the best thing the RDCs told me was

Chastain, I hope you die in a fucking fire.

That’s pretty awesome. At first stuff like that bothered people, but by the end, we knew it wasn’t really serious. It’s just a part of the job, and it can be funny in itself.

Besides boot camp, I’ve been here in Charleston for a week or so. The weather is humid and gross, and running in it feels like you’re drinking water when you breathe. But besides that, I have very little complaints. The rooms are nice and cold, the food is incredible (this command has the Navy’s only five star galley), and we get liberty on the weekends free from doing watches, which is really good news. The schooling is supposed to be pretty hard, but I’m coming from graduating with a 3.5 from a hard college, so I’m not too worried. Math isn’t my strong point, but I’m sure I can push through.

I’ll go into more detail later, but right now I really need a few hours of sleep.

 

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