Currently Under Instruction!

So I finally had some free time this weekend...see, I'm in ALS right now, so for the past 3 weeks, and for the next 2, I have been REALLY busy. I have been averaging 2-3 hours of sleep each day during the work week, all because of homework for this class. I've come to appreciate a lot of things so far though, so despite being sleep deprived, I don't regret attending. "What are some of these things you've come to appreciate?" you ask? Well, first off, I now believe that even though I don't plan on staying in the AF, I should do my best to know my job as fully as possible until I separate. I should be the best supervisor that I can be and learn as much as I can about the AF and my job, etc. Another thing that has developed since ALS is a STRONG desire to learn! Learn everything! I am the least knowledgable in my ALS class about so many things that I should have more of a clue about, that it's motivating me to research a lot of those things. It's also given me an idea of the next college class(s) to take; history, geography, or religion! So that's pretty much it for positive things I've taken from ALS so far...

On to the stuff I did with this free time I mentioned in the beginning of this blog...I went to the Nago Cherry Blossom Festival with my friend Amber! It was a good time, and quite the workout. I'd say we probably ended up walking about 9 miles total, throughout the time we were there. And my calves are definitely thanking me for it all today, ha! But yeah, we had a pretty good time. Just a heads up, you can click on all the pictures to see them bigger. Anway, before we got to the actual festival, we looked at a whole bunch of flowers being sold near the parking lot we parked in:

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Then we walked to the area where the festival was taking place. After we walked through the streets that were littered with booths selling food or impossible chances to win prizes, we finally arrived below the steps of the pathway along the cherry blossom trees:

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Then we climbed all 700 or so steps to the top!



The next few pictures are from various locations up and beyond the central location of the festival:

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The last thing we saw was the end of the parade on the streets down at the bottom of the steps and the road. This type of dance is specific to Okinawa and it's always shown at every festival. I can't remember the name of it right this second though. Anyway, this is the tiniest dancer I've ever seen included in the group. He was so cute!



Okay, well that's all I have. I hope you enjoyed the pictures. I know both Amber and I enjoyed taking them!

Talk again in 2 weeks!

Major who? Minor major!

I've been doing a different, temporary, job for the past 3 weeks that entails answering phones, and tracking paperwork. Sooo, basically I'm a faux secretary. But, I'm not complaining because, as you can probably guess, I have quite a bit of down time. And despite what I may have done in the past, I am NOT abusing this little gem of an opportunity. Yeah, no, I'm actually spending the time looking on University of Washington's website, checking out all the different majors they offer. They have 140 different majors, and that doesn't include all the submajors of the majors. That probably wasn't proper terminology, but you get the idea. I'm starting with the Social Science degrees because it only seems right. Everything I'm interested in falls under a social science major; psychology, sociology, anthropology, communication, etc. Anyway, so far I have looked into Anthropology, and I am now even more excited to take a pertaining class. See, each major has it's own separate site that goes into detail about the submajors, which is really cool! Because I discovered that I like the sound of environmental anthropology and biocultural anthropology, but not necessarily archaeology, or medical and sociocultural anthropology. I will copy and paste the descriptions from the site:

LIKE:

• environmental anthropology, the analysis of human-environment interactions across the full range of sociocultural variation, from the earliest societies to the present
• biocultural anthropology, the study of the evolution and adaptation of the human species, the nonhuman primates, and the modern human populations

DO NOT LIKE:

• archaeology, the exploration of human prehistory through evidence of past human activities
• medical anthropology, the study of health, illness, healing and medicine as part of social and cultural life
• sociocultural anthropology, the study of cultural diversity of the human species, including recurrent global flux in languages, practices, and identities.

Aaaand, that's pretty much how far I've gotten with my research. Though I'm excited to eventually look into sociology and communication, as well as psychology. Their psychology school used to be in the top 20 in the nation, but I can't get free access to the current listing, so who knows where they rank now. That's not the important part though; it's a really good school and it's in WA, so it's cheaper for me. And that last part, yeah that's the important part. *wink*

That stuff is all for the future though. Right now I'm in Math107, which is College Algebra. Okay, well I guess I'm not technically "in" it, since the term doesn't start until Jan 21, but I'm enrolled. I'm actually going to start ALS (Airmen Leadership School) on Monday, so that should successfully fill the college holiday break gap I would have had otherwise (thanks AF!). Yeah, ALS is required before I can sew on my next stripe. And more stripes = more $$$! And more $$$ is always good. So instead of a SrA (Senior Airman), I will be a SSgt (Staff Seargent). There's not a big difference really, except that SSgt's have to evaluate/rate people. Anyway, the AF gives you college credit for ALS, so that puts me only 1 or 2 classes away from a CCAF (Community College of the Air Force) degree. It's not that special really, in the civilian world anyway, but it looks good on your EPRs (Enlisted Performance Reports) or your evaluation. Besides that, it's a good short term goal for while I'm here on Okinawa. My slightly longer short term goal is to get my AA, which will happen before I leave. Ultimately though, I really want to be no more than 1 year away from a BS when I leave, but that requires more research on my end first. Either way, I'll be better equipped for college life if I have a nice big chunk of credits under my belt. So I'm just going to keep pluggin' away at the req'd classes, and hope I can adequately keep up with everything else in the meantime...wish me luck?

Happy Effin' New Years

About 4 3/4 hours ago we had the countdown to 2008 here in Okinawa. So it's officially January 1, 2008 here. It's still December 31, 2007 for most everyone else reading this. I hope everyone has a good one. Mine went down something like this...

I woke up at 3:30pm with a splitting headache. I made some breadfast fully intending on going to the store afterwards, but that didn't happen. Instead I watched a movie, The Break-Up. I don't really know why I chose that movie to watch, but it was hard to do it. For one, I don't like Vince Vaughn because I DO NOT find his rambling endearing like the rest of the country does. And for two, I hated that Jennifer Aniston's character stayed around for as long as she did, continually putting up with his stubborn, immature, irresponsible, childish behavior! I would have dumped him WAAAAY earlier. No, actually I wouldn't have found his persistance charming enough to start dating him in the first place! Anyway, I was happy with the ending, so that's all that matters. Then there's a big chunk of time that I can't account for...Eventually I started to watch My Name Is Earl, Season 2. Then around 8: 20pm I received a phone call from Amber asking about my plans for New Year's, which I replied, "I don't know if I'm going out or not yet. I don't really feel up to it." She said she felt the same way but told me that I would be better off not being alone. So I agreed that I would leave the apartment around 10pm and head to our ex-shop chief's house. I managed to finish the first disc of My Name Is Earl before I got ready. I didn't dress fancy, I didn't feel like it. I actually wore one of Dave's shirts and his beenie. Oh, and a sweater because it's freezing here! Amber decided she was going to stay in, so I went to the party by myself.

Upon my arrival, I was bombarded my a range of mildly drunk to completely wasted people from work. They either had comments to make about my tardiness or they had jell-o shots for me to take. So I took about 4 shots before I was left alone, at which time I heard P. Diddy's song "Last Night" playing. For those of you that don't know of it, the chorus is sung by Keisha Cole, and she sings "If you could only see, your heart belongs to me, I love you so much, I'm yearning for your touch, come and set me free, forever your's I'll be, come and take this pain away...I need you, and you need me, this is so plain to see, and I will never let you go, and I will always love you so, I will." Anyway, it hit home, despite how cheesy, and I started to think about Dave and how he wasn't here... Soooo, of course I started to cry, haha. Luckily Jess came over shortly after that and put her baby Adrienne in my arms, which helped. She said that she would tell people I was crying because she was so cute, hehe. Jess is awesome. The rest of the night went well. Although, we almost missed the change over! I just happened to look at my watch, for the first time all night, at 11:55pm! So we just barely were able to get everyone gathered to do a countdown. And it was over pretty quick. I think 2 couples kissed and everyone else just sorta hugged. Bobby went and peed immediately afterwards, sans hug...he's so sentimental! I really wish Dave was there. It would have been our first New Year's together. Stupid AF and your mission. So yeah, Happy Effin' New Year! Whoo hoo, 2008!