Friday, April 19, 2013

lunch break

I'll start this like I start all my posts: I suck at this.  I'm no good at blogs, really.  But anyways, tech school.  Still freaking here. And kill me, I got my green rope today.  Hahah, only kidding. It's not that bad, but it means no more sleeping in and slipping through the tech school cracks for me, sadly.  No more DBA Smith, now I actually have to be a good Airman.... maybe. (;
But on a serious note, 7 more weeks here! Then I get to go home, and then go back to Lackland for my duty station....

And I don't know why I started a post. I'm bored of this.  Byeeee!

Monday, April 1, 2013

E3 - A1C Smith

    I really know that I'm bad at staying on this thing, I really do.  I say it everytime I write something new!  But anyways, still at tech school...forever and ever.  Been at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio for months now, since November, and I won't be graduating until June. ): I'm sick of the place, and everyone keeps getting the dorms in trouble, so we're basically on lockdown on the weekends lately. For the past month, they've given us curfew, which absoloutely sucks. Words cannot even describe how frustrated the higher ups have been making myself and the fellow Airmen here.  The newer Airmen than me?  I don't feel bad for.  But my job as well as Biomedical Tech, I feel bad for, because we've been here forever. I think they should grandfather us in, and ditch the curfew.
    Other than this stupid curfew, I made A1C this past Friday, because it was my 5 month out of BMT mark. Now to get that volunteer stuff under my belt to get SrA BTZ. (: Hopefully, I start getting my E3 pay soon, because living paycheck to paycheck is starting to suck.
    Since I'm E3 now, I had to sew on stripes.  When I went to pick up my Blues from the drycleaners this weekend, I forgot them in the dressing room AFTER I paid for them.  And then they proceeded to not be open on Sunday OR today.  I'm quite frustrated and hoping that no one took them and the cleaners put them up somewhere, because I can't afford a new service coat, lightweight jacket, and 2 shirts.  I'm praying to whatever's out there, because I really need that stuff back.  It was on account of my own stupididy, but I'm still hoping.
    I'm not going to say that life's good, because I'm not jinxing it, so I'm not gunna say anything.  Whenever I admit to being happy, life get's all crazy.  But I've got a lot to be thankful for, so I won't complain today.  I've got my family back home, my Air Force family here, all my close friends who have become family, steady pay, and an adventure laid out before me for the rest of my career.
    I'm in class now on break, so it's time to close this out.  I'll appologize in advanced, because I know I won't be any better at keeping up.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

life as i know it.

    Now that I posted about zero week, it's time for a personal update. (: I've been in the military for 4 months yesterday, which freaks me out because that's almost half a year!  But, it means a pay raise when I get paid on Monday. (: $100 more dollars in the bank for me.  It's crazy that a mere and forever-long 2 months ago, I was walking across the Lackland parade field in Blues with all my Air Force brothers and sisters.  I'm so blessed to have all these wonderful extended family in my life.  I'm in tech school at Fort Sam Houston, and it really is a family here.  I have 2 girls from my flight and one from my brother flight here, and I'd be lost without them and quite a few other people here.  Somedays I just feel like skipping class and pretending to be a civilian again, but there isn't a day that goes by where I'm not thankful for the decision I made and everything I went through to get to this point.
    I'm almost done with course II in my dental lab class, which is exciting.  EOC next week...I should probably be studying right now, but oh well.  I've got awesome friends who never let me spend a night alone being bored in my room, and family to keep me motivated every day. (:
   Other than school and friends, I got my first tattoo yesterday!  Happy 4 months in the Air Force to me - I got my blog's namesake tattooed on my ribs.  That quote singlehandedly got me through basic training and a lot of other things in life.  I've been planning it for a while, and went on a whim last night and got it.  I'm pretty sore, but holding up.  It'll be worth it once it heals. (:

bmt: zero week.

    Alright, I'm finally going to start talking about BMT.  So, zero week.  Hell week.  Worst week ever.  Whatever you wanna call it, it sucked.
    When I got to San Antonio, it was late - midnight or so maybe.  They had SF tech school ropes waiting to sign us in and throw us on a bus.  We got to in processing after a nerve-wracking bus ride through San Antonio, and were issued ABU parka and liner, and told to gran a box lunch and told to sit down and eat our sandwhich (which was fucking NASTY), and then shuffled around from place to place until they were ready to ship us off to our dorms.
    Next stop?  326 training squadron, where we were met by a horrible lady named Sgt. Miller, from a different squadron, to get us settled in for the night.  She gave us our addresses to send home, and unpacked us, yelled a lot, and made us shower and told us to get the fuck to bed.  I didn't get to bed until about 3am that night.  We woke up to confusion - Sgt. Miller had put us in our brother flight's dorm, and them in ours.  They quickly shuffled us to the correct dorm, and so we met TSgt. Lyles and TSgt Anderson - our TI's, who we came to love like family in later weeks.
    The rest of 0 week is a large blur, but I remember my saving grace being the EC's from our big sister flight.  After the TI's left for the night, they guarded the dorm all night.  They straightened up night displays, shoes, cleaned - whatever they could to take the heat off of us.  They told us it would get better, to just hang on, because it was the worst of it - and weeks later, I told my baby flight the same thing as they went through their 0 week.
    From the blur, the 2 things I remember clearly from that week were my 2 phone calls home.  The first, to give my mom my address very quickly.  I told her to let my first call go to voicemail so she could replay the address, but with every ring I was hoping more and more she wouldn't go through with it so I could hear her voice.  All my flightmates were crying and trying to talk for a second after they gave their address, so it was really hard to hold it together.  At the end of the week, we got a real phone call.  But, I was a student leader at the time, so when my whole flight messed up our homework, I was presented with a mere 5 minute phone call.  My mom kept telling me she couldn't hear me because I was breaking up, but really I was hyperventalating from not being able to breathe from crying so hard.  That was the hardest 5 minutes of my life, while I cried and begged my mom to figure out a way to come to graduation because I missed her so much (my dad only came to graduation) and the like.  That was a very emotional call.  A couple days later, they gave all the student leaders 15 minutes though, because they had to by the rules - and that call went much better.  I think what broke me originally was everyone else was all crying and shit on their 15 (some even got 30 as a reward for something), when I got 5.  Pissed me off that they thought they should be upset, hah.
    Other than all of the emotions, zero week was a lot of processing appointments - so a lot of rushing from meals to get done to make them.  We got uniforms issued, and on Saturday of that week, we took our PT assessment. Which, in TI world, means that they can make us push forever after we're assessed.  They can't before hand.  So my flight got a good, long, 30 minute beating immediately after doing our PT test - and then again once we got back to the dorms.
    They call it hell week for a reason.  It's the worst.  However, just remember:
    "They never said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it."

Sunday, December 2, 2012

ATP.

I'm still slacking, I know, I know.  My intentions were to make an all-inclusive BMT Bible on here, but BMT feels so far away, I hardly remember it - just sort of a stressful blur.  I went near Lackland the other day on my way to Brandon's families house for Thanksgiving, and I think I got a major case of PTSD.  I was looking behind all the giant planes as we were driving by for TSgt Anderson and Tsgt Berry to yell at me for being near a male.  I need to go there for Christmas shopping for souvenirs but I'm so freaking out I'd see one of them at the BX and I'd pass out from fear or something, hahah.

Alright, alright, BMT wasn't THAT bad.  I actually liked my instructors.  Just had a healthy amount of fear toward them (which they like to call respect in the mlitary).  I guess I just don't really know what people want to know about BMT!  I have a notebook that I used as a journal there but I doubt y'all wanna know what female I was fixin' to strangle on the daily or about the blisters on my feet.

But that's all I can think of to write.  Writers block, you know.  I have some lunch and some laundry calling my name.  Cya!

Friday, November 16, 2012

tech school.

Alright, so I'm here!  I'm at Ft. Sam Houston, and I LOVE it.  This place is gunna rock.  There is SO much to post about BMT, but I need to organize it first.  I took lots of notes and stuff while I was there to post some good stuff.  Other than that, I had "class" today, though we weren't supposed to, to get a head start.  I'm going to be Dental Lab, 4Y0X1, Medics HUA!  Seems super fun.  I found out my PCS (Duty Station) today, but I'm going to keep that semi-under wraps for a while until someone can guess it. (:  More later, it's the weekend, pizza/movie night in the NPO room!  Xo

Sunday, November 11, 2012

airman smith.

Hello Blogger!  I am officially Airman Smith, coin and all.  I'm on Town Pass with a friend's family for the day, but I'll post more this week from tech school.  (: