Yikes.. I’m out of school, and I’m supposed to have free time… Why is not not coming! Part of the reason is because I’m too damn nice. 😛 I’ve fixed computers for two people (one being a person who just deployed and the other for one of my sgts who was going to mail it off to get windows reinstalled…) Computers just hate to work right I think. *grins*

Lots of news… Grades are still hidden until Thursday (except for my Psyc class I took online. I got an A there.) I’ll let you know what I got in my other three classes then. (I still believe that those classes were the hardest I’ve had to take my school school career. (In case you forgot, it’s Calc II [Math 223] and Probability and Statistics for Scientists and Engineers [Math 335]) It totally threw me for a loop. All the stress of getting ready to deploy didn’t help with that either. (Everyone left on Sunday.) As soon as my First Sgt found out I wasn’t going with them, he threw me into ALS (Airmen Leadership School) which I’ll get to in a sec. I also signed up for Fall II classes (Data Structures, Java Programming, and British Literature I). I’ve been told that I’m making a bad move doing ALS and School at the same time, but we’ll see.

Another thing about my school. They’ve finally finished my Evaluation of Credits. A couple things this does is show me exactly what I need for school. It also shows me what credits they’ve transfered from prior schools. And… sadly, it tells exactly what I have remaining until I graduate. 9 Classes total: 2 upper level English, 3 Foreign Languages, 1 Science with Lab, Data Structures, and 2 Comp Sci Electives. After this term, it’ll be 6 with 1 English, Data Structures, and 1 CS Elective out of the way. I also found out something that’s almost painful. All the classes I took at ITT Tech (that I was told NOBODY will accept…) … … they transfered them in. So.. like half the classes I already took were done already. (All the intro courses.) While it’s nice that it totally wiped out almost all the electives, it’s sad because I would have been finished a LONG time ago had I not retaken pretty much everything. Even the Psych class I just finished transfered in. The silver lining, however, is that transfered classes don’t give a grade, so the A I received for Psych will help my GPA better than the transfer credit would have. Also, since they transfered in those courses, I can’t take Japanese since I can’t transfer in anything else. So, next semester I’m going to start with German. Why not, right? I’ll still study Japanese. Also, since I’ll finish at the end of Spring II (vs Spring I) I won’t be able to do Spring Graduation. 🙁 Not really a big deal. It’s just that I’m getting Graduation stuff in the mail and it’s making me look forward to it. 🙂

As far as the deployments go… As I mentioned, we were four people over-tasked… This lead to me and three others being removed from the deployment. Since then and now, they’ve had one more tasking fall so one of the other guys picked it up. (It might have been me if I weren’t in ALS.) Luckily I didn’t have to attend training so I’m still here. The one guy who was put back on the list ships out next sunday to training. It’s pretty well said that if that day passes and no more taskings come down, I shouldn’t have to go at all even though I’m standby. (And with me being considered “tdy” to ALS, I’m pretty sure I won’t get tasked.) So I’m here for a while still. 🙂

Ok… Airmen Leadership School. Some call it Sgt Training since it’s required to sew on Sgt. (If you line number comes up and you haven’t been to ALS, you either need a waiver, which is hard to get, or you just wait until you can take it.) ALS is basically School. It goes from 7:30am to around 4pm (or 5:30 every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday for Physical Training.) For five weeks, I show up and just study anything that is considered a leadership skill. Courses include public speaking, writing, mentoring, and various military history/tradition. We actually get College Credit for this. (Which, sadly, I don’t need.) There is supposed to be a lot of homework (LOTS of reading) required, but after last semester with the 4 classes, I’m sure I’ll be ok. 🙂 Even with my school stuff… (Two things make it so I’m not worried. First, school starts next week, so it’ll only be the first 4.5 weeks that I’ll be doing both. Secondly, two of the thee classes are Programing courses. I mean… seriously, I’ll be doing my programming homework to relax after ALS work. 🙂 Love the programming! It is java though.. *shudder* Data Structs is C++ though. 🙂 So yea, next five weeks I’ll be online a little less, but it’s all good. It goes by quick.

What else. I read the Da Vinci code. Pretty good novel. A little anti-climatic at the end. No worries though. I thought it was a good read overall. Oh yea…

I love my laptop. 🙂 I guess I didn’t mention that really. Tina got it for me as a deployment/birthday/Christmas present. I’m not deploying, but I’m not giving it back either. *grins* It’s MINE! It really is nice though.

– HP Pavilion zd8000 Customizable NB
– Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Home Edition with SP2
– Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 640 w/HT Technology, 3.2GHz
– FREE Upgrade to
17.0″ WXGA+ BrightView 1440×900!!
– 1.0GB DDR2 SDRAM, 533MHz (2x512MB)
– 80 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive
– DVD+/-RW/R & CD-RW Combo w/Double Layer Support
– FREE Upgrade to 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) X600

– 54g(TM) Integ. Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN & Bluetooth
– FREE Second 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery!!

It plays HL well, runs linux great. (Even got both Internal wireless and my Orinoco card working on it. I’ve been having fun with kismet and on-base wireless HP’s too… *grins evilly*) Tina is so good to me.

As for Tina. She still annoys me at times, but I think that’s what makes us who we are. I still love her. Hopefully we can continue to work thing out. (I just need to stop making her mad XD blah) She does take care of me and for that I am grateful. Well see how things go in the future. Good things I hope. 🙂

Anyway, I hope that quenches your need for an update for a little bit. I’ll write when I get a moment.

Later all 🙂

Matt

[Edit: Just because my wife thinks everyone is going to take the comment about her in the worst possible way, I just wanted to clarify… I love her and through better and worst, I still love her. Yes, at times she does annoy me… I honestly think any marriage without it’s problems is fake, but even though she does annoy me at times, I still love her and pray that we can endure the ages.]

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Filed under: Uncategorized - @ October 4, 2005 6:42 pm