merry chrismtas!

So today I woke up and went to Seattle. I was able to get up to the space needle.there was a great view. It was quite windy as well. I bought souvenir after getting done. It's been a great time at lily's house. We've had great fai leave tmily ti, good food and a good your of Seattle. I met a lot of iinteresting people. The weather has been good and hasn't been raining, just cloudy. . I

Thanksgiving four day

So I had 2 Thanksgiving dinners this year. First with my friend Rudee and with my friends Mark and Laura and their families the next day. First thanksgiving was at someone's house in Augusta. It was a great day. I was in a big house with a big yard and everything. I pretended to be Rudee's cousin from Statesboro just because we can pull off looking alike and related. I played cards after eating. We played CAN"T which was a game I haven't played in a while. It got pretty interesting. I went to Walmart afterwards and bought some stuff for thanksgiving the next day. I watched "Hot tub time machine" with Brian and Rudee along with Brian's dog which shed a lot of hair! Second thanksgiving I spent with Mark and Laura and their kids. I had lots of fun, the food was great. I saw a turkey being fried.
Saturday was spent cleaning the room. I dedicate one day out of every four day at least once every month to clean the room. I didn't finish until 3 in the afternoon. I folded clothes, swept, mopped, and cleaned the bathroom. I tried to study a little bit as well. I just went through some material over the next topics of discussion

Almost thanksgiving!

So it's one more day before thanksgiving!
I've had a wonderful time at my current rotation at Walton Rehab.
Working with patients undergoing rehabilitation, working with the nurses who were really nice.
Today's our last day of rotation. Working for our instructor has been a lot of hard work.
I've gone to Walmart twice this month and I've bought tons of household goods plus food.
I've never found a store that had all the necessities in one location.
The barracks have gotten in new furniture. I couldn't believe that everything I used to own was 12 years of age!
So far I like what they have. It's a bit heavy to move around since it's all made of metal.
I saw Twilight last weekend! Someone coughed up blood in the back of the theatre and everyone was panicking.... They had to stop the movie for a few minutes. There were only 10 minutes left to see but it was getting really good. Breaking dawn is the only part of the series I would actually watch again!

beginning of november

So it's the beginning of November. This past week has been stressfull. I've had a few more tests and a new rotation. This weekend was a great time to decompress.
I went to walmart this weekend and bought some groceries and a few other items. I finally got a stove top to help me cook. I've been fed up with not being able to get some greatly needed nutrition. We haven't been provided stoves so it's been hard to even find anything to eat. So far I've made eggs, pancakes and pasta on it.
I did my case study this afternoon with my partner, put up a presentation together. I didn't imagine that time would fly working on our project. It was a great partner work and we had some good resources.

flu mist!

So this morning I had to wake up at 3 in the morning. Unfortunately my alarm clock didn't go off until I found out it was quarter to 4. I was 10 minutes late to where I was supposed to be at the gym. I wasn't in serious trouble or anything, but this is the second time I've been screwed by my alarm. I paid attention to what was wrong with it in the first place so I wouldn't have it happen again.

My whole platoon and the senior platoon gave flu mist intranasal shots from about 5-12:30. There were tons of soldiers, marines, navy and air force personnel. there were six people to a table and we'd get a bunch of people directed to us. People were moving fast, but the time seemed to move extremely slow. I took breaks in between for about 10 minutes eating donuts and oreo cookies while I was at it. When ever the crowds started dying down we cracked jokes for a minute or two until the next few people come in to our lanes. It was a pretty tiring day. But we got out at around 1pm. I took a nap afterwards

Exam 6

So today I took the 6th block of testing on the GI system. It went fairly well. I passed with my normal average 82%. I brought my ipod this time to pass the time. It was raining hard outside. After the last class that day, we ended up having an issue about the scores having to be recalculated because the server messed up on the other end. I already knew I passed so it wasn't a big deal. At first there were 13 failures, narrowed down to 7. Most people had issues regarding whether or not their answers were credited for. I haven't had any trouble with the tests, I go through them 3 times to check answers. We waited until around 5:30 to confirm the test scores.

Nine West

So I've been workin up in 9 west in the Med/surg ward. We have some pretty interesting patients. None of them are long term care. Most of them get discharged within 24 hours. It's a lot busier on this floor and there's a lot of things to learn. I haven't handed out medications yet. But there's still enough time before we leave that I can hand them out. I had one patient with hemodialysis and one patient out of post surgery this week. I got to work with a few RN's which was great help.

Exam 5

Today we had exam 5 on Respiratory system and medications. I left for the school really early. I was there at 6:45, studied for a little bit and started the test at 7:30. I only took 1 1/2 hours on the test. At some point Cpt Sugg one of my instructors helped me cheat. She said something about changing one of my answers coz she went over it in the review last night. I ended up passing with an 83. The rest of the day we had a a class on the Gastrointestinal system. I ate Burger King for lunch today and it didn't sit well in my stomach. I hadn't eaten any fast food or drank soda in 2 weeks. My diet has consisted of a cup of coffee and 3 square meals  throughout the day. 

September madness

Hello everyone,
Long time no blog. September has had a pretty good run so far. The beginning of this month I earned my citizenship at the USCIS. It's quite great after I've worked hard for it for 3 years now. It only took four months since the time I turned in my application. The interview was quite simple. I passed all the questions and was sworn in a few moments later.

The beginning of this month I raised the flag and put it down in the afternoon. My detail put up the huge 30" x 24" flag which was quite heavy and huge for the labor day holiday.

My class had the 4th exam on Cardiovascular system. It was a lot of information. However I passed the test which was quite simple in its nature. I had my final grade of 82. I was quite glad to get it over with since there were 8 failures and they had to wait 5 days to retake the test.

This morning I did a patient assessment with a partner. We were being graded for this and we did quite well. There were a few things we missed. We still ended up having a high score.

Saturday gayness

So this morning the entire class had to come in to school at 9 am. We were there for 4 hours working on printing certificates. I only had 2 things to do. I really didn't have to be there that long, but our supervisor would not let us go anywhere. We were there until 1. I was just there to help people out that didn't have the programs to print out  the certificates. I'm currently green on most of my education list.

After I left I slept until 5pm. Which made up for the 2 hours I could've laid in bed because I was out late last night with a couple of friends

Clinicals Intro

So, today's day 1 of clinicals which is basically an orientation of the hospital. I worked at the uptown VA. A pretty neat hospital with a lot of veteran. My group got there at 7:30. We took breakfast and went on upstairs to  start the tour. We went through different wards such as physical therapy, the rehab pool, and all the floors.

My group finished the tour around 11:30. After lunch we decided to study for our test on Tuesday. After that we started introducing ourselves. We finished at around 3 pm which was pretty good coz i like to finish the day at that time

Fun under the Georgian sun

So I've been back in Georgia since July 20. It was quite amazing for me to have been through 4 different time zones in 10 days.

• The day after that I got all my educational stuff like books and reading assignments. 
• There was a barbeque event on Friday and I ended up helping people serve the night shift at the hospital.
• There was more barbeque going on through the rest of the the weekend. 
• Sunday I went to a lake. It was about 40 minutes trip. I enjoyed the lake even though I only bathed in it for about an hour. 
• I ate more chicken!!! There were 400+ birds cooked for a crowd.
• I got my tattoo covered up afterwards.... I enjoyed this third tattoo session just because it had an interesting pattern to a cover up. 

4th of July weekend 2011

• This year I had the funnest 4th of July weekend.
• I spent about 6 hours studying the reproductive and urinary systems.
• Saturday night I met some new people and we went to the Pride fest downtown. I also went to a club and the riverwalk.
• Sunday night I went to the riverwalk again. I sang "Sweet Child o mine" on karaoke. Afterwards we went clubbing at Pat O'brien's 
• Monday I spent the whole day outside of my room since I left the keys inside -__-
• I didn't get in till 7:30 since I decided to wait for my roommate. I was outside most of the day playing COD. When I finally decided to get back in it was 84 degrees in the room since the A/C broke.

HP7.2

So this morning I watched HP7.2 with Alex, Ernest and Karo.
Premiere started at 3 am.
We stood in line for 2 hours after getting food from 7-11
I can't believe we're seeing the finale of the series :P
I can't believe that it's been 10 years since the first came out.

Hawaii!

So I've been in Hawaii for 4 days now. It's been great seeing the sights and sounds. I went to the beach which was really beautiful. I went to Pearl Harbor with my family. It was smaller than I expected. Took a lot of pictures. It was pretty cool seeing all my family's vacation pics. I do miss the Philippines. I don't wnnt to go back to LA tonight -_-

Good bye June

So, It's the end of June. There's 4th of July this weekend. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I did pass a test just yesterday.... I got an 88% on my A&P test.

7 down 3 to go.

• So recently I've just hit my 7th test in phase 1. 
• I didn't do so well on one of them (Nutrition) and that caused my grade to come plummeting down a bit low. 
• I did make up for it by scoring 88% on the Lymphatic system test.
• We have another test this coming Wednesday. 
• My family's out for vacation for three weeks. I'm hoping I'll be able to see them some time this summer.

Mandatory fun day

So this morning, I got woken up by staff duty knocking on my door. This is the first time this has ever happened. She was lucky to catch me awake and actually knocking on my door. She apparently barged into some other people's rooms.

I went to breakfast, and then went to the PX so Alvarez could buy some shoes. The woman bought 10 shoes it seemed! all for the price of $65. I went ahead and went on sniffing perfumes.

We had formation at 11:30. We were there for an hour cheering our competitors. Then we stood for another hour waiting for the tug of war

It didn't happen until 3pm. So me and my friends left for lunch and came back. Our company won the whole tournament. It was a great victory indeed.

I took a nap in the afternoon and when I woke up I just stayed downstairs in the gazebo. I ate pizza, barbecue, and drank some soda. I had a bunch of good conversations with my peers. It was a really good night.

M6 going through the course

So, I've finally gotten what I needed to start this class called M6 which trains me in being and LPN. I'm back to experiencing sleep deprivation, lots of studying and testing. I've survived through 2 tests already. I've gotten 80% on both. Which means I suck at the other 20%. But all in all it's been a good 2 weeks. I was worried  about the tests. 

Ridiculousness.

So, my M6 date is drawing closer and I haven't had any word on how I'm going to get to San Antonio. I had to get my orders amended twice. It was decided that the company was going to fund my travel and school expenses. So I got my tickets, all my necessary documents and everything was good. I still worked up in the 11th floor though. At least until lunch time.

Tooth extraction, time off, stuff in between.

• So on Wednesday, May 4th I had my wisdom teeth taken out. All 4 of them. My dumbass forgot NOT to eat! They wouldn't agree on sedating me since anesthesia makes you risk vomiting.  So I did it awake and had them all taken out.

• The first 2 came out really quick the last 2 on the left were really tough. 
• I got done with the procedure, tucked some gauze in the back, got my prescription, my profile and got work off the rest of the day for bed rest.
• I took 3 days of rest. I ate a lot! even with a big extraction.
• This weekend was really boring since I didnt't do anything to keep me occupied unlike last week.

29-30

So this weekend I decided to go to the library and work on those forms (yes ppl the same forms I've been working on forever. The n400 application for naturalization.) I finally finished it this weekend, gathered all the supporting documents and what not. I went to Target just to get my pictures taken for the application. After that I loitered around all the stores surrounding target. Old navy, then Petsmart, then Target itself, Then Borders. I didn't even buy anything.... well except basketball shorts, but other than that I just browsed intensely. I wanted to go to the mall. I searched it on my GPS in terms of walking. The freaking mall was 30 minutes away! I walked through this quiet neighborhood running down this street called Mark's Church street. It was quite hot out these past few days. Luckily there was a good amount of shade available. Oh yes because the south just happens tree filled in certain areas. I chilled at the mall and then at Barnes and Noble.

On Sunday I went to mass. I've always liked the masses over here. Afterwards I ate lunch and went to the PX where wasted my whole afternoon trying on clothes and contemplating about shoplifting (Okay I know what you're thinking. And no I would never shoplift. Especially not at a military installation). I did buy water and a chocolate bar afterwards. I rode my bike back home. It was so hot! It was 84 degrees out today!!! And I hate the humidity. 

25-28 April

So these past few days haven't really been out of the ordinary. Well except for the fact that I have been overusing coffee lately! Monday morning I was really tired coz I only had about 5 hours of interrupted sleep :P.

Tuesday night I ate about 2 boxes of pizza by myself. My roommate took a few. Wow.... that was probably the most pizza i've had for myself

Yesterday I bought some melatonin to help me sleep. It was a great remedy for sleeping. It's all natural and I had a good night's sleep.

Okay... so I gathered all my naturalization paperwork yesterday. I printed all my stuff at the library.

We've been getting word about cleaning our rooms for inspections the past 2 days. Now it's Thursday and The big boss wants our floors waxed. Fact: There are about 72 rooms in this building and only about 40 people occupy it. Problems??? Everyone has to pitch in! There's 200 people in the company and over half don't live here. Also... there's not that much cleaning material for everyone.

Charleston weekend.

So, after work on Friday, I slept for about 5 hours. I went to get ready for my trip to Charleston afterwards, which was actually spur of the moment. I got to the bus station at about 4 in the morning, my bus left at 5. I had a layover in Columbia and from then it was straight to Charleston.

When I arrived at Charleston, I was in the middle of downtown. I ended up riding the bus for about an hour and a half. First one took me to the airport and the second one took me to Folly Road. Folly Road is a mile off the beach. I took a 20 minute walk to the actual beach. It was really hot out there. I bought a disposable camera on the way to the beach.

It was really nice out there, the waves were crashing, the water was a bit cold, but it was sunny outside. I spetnt about 3 hours at the beach. Then i ate at a pizzeria. Then I headed for the last bus going downtown. I spent a night at a hotel next to the bus station so I wouldn't have any trouble going back home tomorrow. 

4/21/2011

So this morning I got up from a good night's sleep. Today as usual Thursday is insanely slow because there's hardly anyone around.. I ate lunch at DFAC # 1 this afternoon. It was really delicious! I had bbq ribs. Since it was next to an AIT, there were students around. and this one kid who was 18 <<<(ohh my... brings back memories) he kept talking to me coz he was all new to the army and stuff like that.

This day was boring, I drew tattoos on my hands. both left and right. I drew a unicorn with my left hand lol. I went to the PX to get a light bulb for my closet. They didn't have the one I was looking for.

I got 3 cups of coke while I was browsing through the whole store. That's all I ever do when I'm there! Browse, browse, browse! I buy what I need and then do that. Every time I look at the electronics someone always goes "Need help sir?" _______Well, if I did need help I'd come to you. I mean how hard is it to look at a mac?

Booyah!

So the first order of business today is the PT test scheduled in the morning. I haven't had any good sleep for the past few days. During the event, I scored 66 pushups, 62 situps and 15:40 runtime<<< I suck at running.

The day seemed very long and boring. No one came in for anything to do with the regular in processing procedures. I watched a few long videos. I was really sleepy and I couldn't concentrate.

I had a java hut for lunch. It was really good, I took a stroll to the java hut trailer. It was really nice. I ended up wanting another mocha javacino.

Palm Sunday weekend.

• So apparently this weekend is Palm Sunday weekend. Which is quite interesting because I haven't been to Palm Sunday for a while. 
• Saturday afternoon was quite busy. I had to review the N400 documents... which I should've mailed out a few weeks ago. 
• I gathered all the requirements it required and I thought I was gonna be done by 4pm.
• I ended up going to Target to make some 2x2 photos as part of the packet. The Target store over here is still slightly overpriced despite the fact that people usually go here to be thrifty.
• The rest of the weekend I spent a lot of napping. I become awakened at around 3 in the morning and not able to get back to sleep.
• I took a lot of random pictures on my camera phone.... lol
• I recently read about a tornado up in Raleigh, NC. I had plans to go there next week. I'll keep an eye out though. 
• A few minutes ago I was just hanging out and sitting down with 3 other people. The place gets somewhat dead on the weekends.
• Oh and I made some arroz caldo. Not exactly what I expected. It's still good I bet.... Well I'll see in a few minutes

3rd week of April

So this week hasn't really been out of the ordinary. Been showing up to work from 7:30-4:30.

• This morning, no one was here on our floor. I called Sgt McCall and went "There's no one on our floor!" Apparently he was in there and forgot to open the door.
• PT test is coming up on Wednesday. We got our height and weight early in the morning. Ugh I've been the same weight for the longest time. 133lbs! The only time I gain is when I've eaten.
• I went to the gym once this week. 
• I've been taking so many naps. 
• I'm falling asleep at around 3 in the afternoon.

I hate Monday!

• Once again I was awoken by a toothache. It was about 3 in the morning when it started kicking in. I wanted to sleep in until my alarm went off at quarter past 4. But I just cleaned my teeth and flossed it which seemed to give it some relief.
• This morning my NCO, SGT McCall led PT. He had us running across the field which was actually more fun than usual PT. Then we went to run the track. I was glad it was our own pace this time. I love sprints.
• I was really tired for work today. I was going to town on the coffee I made. At lunch I took a nap. I only meant to take about 20 minutes. I actually overslept. I normally take 1 hour for lunch, but today was considered longer. It was about an hour and a half.
• There were a lot of people in processing today. 
• I worked till about 5. There were these books that did not contain page numbers. I worked on correcting that. It took about an hour and a half.
• I took a nap 

ATL Sunday.

• So, it's midnight right now and I'm having the worst toothache in my life. It kept me up for 3 hours until I decided to get some Tylenol PM.
• I woke up at 9 am
• I ate at the Waffle House across the motel parking lot. The lady at the diner was looking at my shirt and was jokingly like "I think Lady Gaga is a freak! Gaga, googooo whatever her name is." Then she started talkin about this one time Gaga was wearing horse mane shoes.
• I took the shuttle bus to the airport and basically wasted time at the airport. I clearly missed the greyhound that I originally wanted to take since it left the same time I left the waffle house. 
• I waited till 2 in the afternoon for the shuttle to Augusta. E-Z ride which was the only shuttle to Augusta. I rode that all the way back home. 

More fam bam

So after the 2 nights at the hotel at Aiken, my parents found a place a mile off post. It was called the Executives in which was really nice because they had like a kitchen and a homey set up in side. I went there the first time and touched kittens. There were about 6 of them.

Today Saturday we left for Atlanta in our rental car. After that we took a few pictures at the park. I went to the Atlanta aquarium with my two sisters. We had a lot of fun. We touched manta rays.

They flew out at 9pm eastern while I stayed at a motel. 

Fam bam

So my family came over here to the base. They flew from LAX up to Atlanta and caught a bus and a cab to the hospital where i worked at. It's been kinda hard just to find time in between work hours and time in the afternoon.

First night we were here, my dad and I went to the airport to rent a car. My roommate took us there. We went to the mall after work. We just ate at the food court and went shopping.

On the way back it was a bit of a headache since I don't have a driver's license (I know, such bs right I'm 20 already and I SHOULD have one like a normal person).

Actually it's been like that for the past 2 nights. I mean my dad keeps making all these unnecessary right turns for some reason after which we end up being lost, rerouted by the GPS and then taking longer to arrive. We've been rerouted to gate 5 which is really far from gate 1.

On a good note, I did go to the riverwalk with all of them and spent some time together out there all relax and stuff. Plus my parents ended up relaxing in the hospital.

4/4/2011

So this morning, I slept through my alarm. So did my roommate. We were both late for formation. This is the first time I've been late since he got that ticket which incidentally he's going to a mini court for today.

I got ready for work and at about 8:30 my roommate called me asking me to come and be his witness at the case hearing. It wasn't till 4:30 this afternoon, so I waited for him for nothin.

I had a lot of coffee today! It kept me focused on working on my APEQS which is a program online. After 2pm, I started feeling sleepy. I got some food from downstairs.

I went to "court" with my roommate. It was not what I expected. I was just there sitting down thinking that there was a purpose in me being a witness. My roommate's citation said "speeding 37/25." He couldn't get prove it false since the speedometers can verify a vehicle's speed. So that was done and I didn't really have to do anything.

4/3/2011

What I did today:

• Bought my sister a present,
• went to church
• My roommate came back from Atlanta.
• Slept early

4/2/2011

This morning, my roommate left the room at around 5:30. I was puzzled as to where on earth he could possibly be going. I tried to go back to sleep but I just laid half awake until 7:30. I decided to get breakfast and take a shower.

At around 2pm, I walked to the shopette and waited for a cab to go to the mall. This is my 3rd weekend at the mall. I started out browsing around the Apple store and Barnes and Noble. I had a small question to ask regarding my ipod at the store. I didn't get a fix for it but it was no big deal. I contined to browse through all the products. I was fascinated at this one IPad application called "Flightboard" which shows the itinerary for over 3,000 airports worldwide. Afterwards, I listened to a few songs, browsed at products like the new nano, the macbooks etc. etc. I went to Barnes and Noble and used the free wifi and started reading books about Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. I only book one book. That was "Macbeth." I haven't been able to find it in the library, so I figured I'd buy it. It is my favorite Shakespearean play.

I went home around 7:30 p.m.. I actually forgot my key in my room. I texted my roommate and he told me to climb into the window. So I did. I did that, and then I locked myself out again by accident. I had to go through the same window again. I saw my sister online, so I talked to her for a little bit. Then she started getting frantic about having a phone for six-flags tomorrow. I gave her 2 options and then my dad got annoyed and started getting mad. 

11th floor

This morning, I received great news. I was gonna work up in the 11th floor building for Hospital education and training (HET). I got up there and got introduced to SPC Rogers, SFC Ledet and SGT McCall. They were glad to have me of assistance to them now that the days are getting busier. I've been working there for the past 3 days.

It's been a great experience. Thursday and Friday were really slow for some reason. The work starts at 7:30am-4:30 pm. It seems long I know but it's alright. I have been eating 3 square meals due to the fact that the DFAC is on the 3rd floor below

This week I've been trying to find a room for my family to stay in. Since it's masters week in Augusta, all the hotels are full now.

Last night(Friday night) I bough a scrapbook and did some scrapbooking.

3/29/2011

I woke up at around 7 am this morning. I didn't even take a shower because I took a shower after the gym last night. I just showed up for work. My platoon SGT had me log on the computer and tasked me out to go get an outlook account on the computer. I had to wait till 9 coz they were out till then. I grabbed a coffee and went back.

I didn't do anything else for the rest of the day because there was really nothing to do. I went to Tuesday formation. But I did my laundry before that. I left my phone in the laundry room. Gasp! That would really suck if I left it there for a while and someone snatched it. Luckily I didn't leave it long enough and it was right where I left it. I took a nap afterwards.

floor time

So this morning, PT was cancelled coz of the weather. I went to sleep till 6:45. I showed up for work and all I did was stay in the dayroom waxing floors. The whole thing started with 1/2 the room. The far half wasn't dried after we applied the wax stripper. We waited till lunch for it to finish. My roommate and I were working on it. We finished the half with wax applied to it. Then I started applying wax on the other half. That's when things got a bit messy. I thought that this would create a problem I almost cried. Now I hardly am able to keep up with the same page on the progress. All we really had to do was wait for the wax to dry, then buff it. I really suck at this job. I've never been required to wax floors, except in elementary school where we did it with our hands. The floor turned out looking good, even though it was 3 shades of grey.

I went to the gym in the afternoon. I worked on chest and did some cardio. I lifted weights a little bit. I do admit I was a bit bored since I didn't have a plan in my mind on what to do. I jumped on a box a few times and then went on the treadmill. Today's work out was boring. Afterwards my roommate and I decided to go to the PX for takeout. I had Anthony's pizza and some chicken wings. I saved the chicken wings for breakfast.

3/27/2011 Sundae!

This morning I woke up at 9 am. I ate a chicken gyro which I saved from last night. I watched some youtube, chatted on skype for a little bit. I didn't get to go to church today. I'm still used to going in the afternoon at 5pm on Sunday.

I took lunch at the hospital as usual. I got tired all of a sudden going back to my room. Maybe it was lunch that did it. I took a nap for about 2 hours. I woke up and started to go to the PX. My mom called me while she was at the hair salon with my sister. My sister's phone got chewed up by the dog, which I thought was very sad.

I went to the PX on my bike. I got lost and it took me half an hour to get there. I tried to use my GPS on my new phone. But knowing how I am with directions, I just cannot take a clear route. I found it eventually. I got a haircut which was my main intention.

Going back to the hospital on that hill is very tiresome. I have to go to a high point and it gets very tiring just riding up the road. 

3/26/2011

Yay it's Saturday today! I had a very interesting day. First off, I went to sleep till 10 in the morning. Then I went out to buy a bike. I got lost on the way to the bike store. Some lady at the commissary misled me to the bike shop. I ended up taking directions from a Thai lady who incidentally had a bike she hadn't used for a year. She sold it to me for 50 bucks including the pump. It was quite a sweet deal indeed. 

It started raining the same time I wanted to ride my bike back home. It happened for about 20 minutes. Then when it stopped,  I proceeded to drive back to my room. It only took about 15 minutes. It might have taken less than that had I not taken a turn on Brainard halfway across the track and field.

I took a shower and then went to the mall afterwards. I set up a line with Verizon. Funny thing about Verizon is that they have a different system for their network. They do not rely on SIM Cards like most phones do. I spent about 500 bucks in the store today. I got a Droid X phone. It's got a bigass screen. I used it a lot just within the 4 hours I've had it. 

Friday! Friday!

So today, I woke up at 4 in the morning. I've been sleeping since 7pm last night. I was so tired since that fire alarm woke me up on Thursday and I only took an hour of napping in the afternoon. I participated in the 4 am PT session which focused on abdominal workouts today. I didn't like the exercises. I've been having trouble doing pushups and situps for a while. Plus I worked out the day before and I'm still a little sore.

We got done at 5:30. For the past week, I haven't been able to get breakfast at the DFAC simply because I don't make time to do so in between 7 and 8. This morning all we did was wax and buff the day room tiles. There were 4 of us. We applied 3 coats of wax and buffed.

For lunch, I went to one of my NCO's house. It was a lot nicer than going to the DFAC for lunch. He made chicken wings which tasted awesome! We stayed there till about 12:30 in a nice part of town on Tobacco road. Then we came back and finished buffing the floors. We got done at 3:30. I took a nap afterwards

In Processing Gordon

For the past 2 days, all I've been doing is being part of the company. I knocked out my inprocessing papers in about 3 days. Most of the stations were in the hospital building next door. On MWF, we do PT at 5 in the morning which is extremely early :P. My first session, we did group runs. For some reason group runs always hurt my back and my legs. Maybe it's the shortness of stride in between the rows that's causing it. Because when I run by myself, it doesn't happen. The air is sort of dry for the mornings, so it's good to take in a lot of water.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have afternoon formation at 4:30. Normally the command just gives us a talk through what's been going on and how things have been going yadayadayada, and then we take off. This week we have been doing post clean up. The first thing we cleaned was the Fisher House across the hospital. There were tons of leaves that had fallen to the ground and we raked them up and got rid of them. Second time, I didn't do that, but I'm sure there was a group going at it. I was stuck with a group cleaning up a parking lot which isn't really that hard. We only did it for an hour.

On Thursday morning the fire alarm went off. At first I thought I was in a trance because I was watching some kind of weird movie earlier that evening. I tripped over my shoes on the way out to the safe zone in the gazebo. We were there till about 6 am. It really sucked coz I wanted to sleep in till 6:30.  I went to the gym earlier this week, which was good considering I haven't done it in about 3 weeks. 

Gordon

So, I recently got to the new unit. I presented myself at 8 in the morning on Monday. There were just a few slight issues. Oddly I'm not supposed to be here yet. I have to complete the first phase of my training in Fort Sam. I would've been sent out that way, but I signed into the unit already. Therefore I am inprocessed as part of the unit. I just took care of the inprocessing and got a little counseling. Nothing too big. People are nice here. I've got a roommate. It sucks that I don't have a car or a license.... I brought that up btw so hopefully I have something to work on while I'm en route to the next part of life. It sucks that it seems like I'm getting a free ride. I've already seen the mall which is huge and pretty and has all the American shops inside. I almost signed up for Verizon that Sunday at the mall. I have a to go phone which is sort of inconvenient. I'm gonna go back for it on Sunday. 

Outta here (out of Italy)

Amsterdam Schiphol

So today's my last day in Italy. I've only had 2 hous of sleep so far. Karen had suckered me into playing a few games of boggle a few hours ago. I went to sign out for leave. I saw Wattson and Council for the last time. I also SSG Kirpan that morning as well. I waited for the bus outside my room. Unfortunately I missed it because i messed up my luggage. It was only a few meters away when it drove off. I called Rob at about 4:45 in the morning. I told him what had happened and I really did not wish to disturb him so early in the morning. There was no one else that had a car who was sober that morning. He came and picked me up. By the time he got there it was about a quarter past 5. He drove me to the airport and arrived in 40 minutes which Rob said was his fastestrecord tome arriving to Marco Polo.


Luckily I only needed to catch a flight to Amsterdam Schiphol airport. It took off at 7 and arrived shortly before 9. The airport in Amsterdam was pretty. There were a lot of good stores there.but I simply did not have the time. I needed to walk to my gate for my flight to Atlanta. I did talk to some tourists heading to Manila in the line for security. Before I boarded, the inspectors went through my backpack. The first thing they pull out is a pair of shears. I was thinking to myself... "Oh no i hope the do not take those. Can't be having scissors in my ride/feeling so high like a g6." I endured an 8 hour ride to Atlanta from Amsterdam it took about 9 hours. I arrived at 3 in the afternoon. The airport was amazing. I haven't been there for 2 1/2 years now. I caught my last leg of flight to Augusta. I took a cab to fort Gordon to the medical center. The people who greeted me were very nice. I got a room to stay in.

St. Patty's

Ok, so today is the day of my final out signing. All I had to do today was go to S1 and get my commander to sign off on my papers. Easy enough. There was a formation held for me and 2 other people. It was to recognize our achievements during our time with the unit. The three of us received the Army achievement medal. Afterwards we got to give out our final words.... mine kinda sucked but whatever. They'll remember me mostly for what i've accomplished and what the times we've gone through together. Afterwards I got a beer mug with the 503d insignia on it.

I repacked my bags just so I can fit my junk in 2 bags. I bought a luggage bag for $5. It had 2 spiders living in it. I hung out with Dev for a few minutes. He was having a bad day because someone lost a sensitive item from a weapon, meaning that he would be held down for a long time if people started realizing.

Richardson gave me a call. He invited me to the Chinese restaurant down the road. The weather has been a lot better so we were able to walk down the road. We sat down and ate dinner. We reminisced for a little bit. Afterwards we went bowling with Randy, Jesse and Randy's girlfriend Emily. I kind sucked at bowling. But there was this one part where I was bowling with my eyes closed and it gave me 3 strikes. I was happy but it worked only for a little bit.

Everyone else is getting drunk tonight. I'm just staying put. There's really no obligation in drinking on this holiday specifically. Just because the Irish do it doesn't mean everyone has to do it. Everyone was also wearing green, which I used to do for St. Patty's day. I'm just wearing a white shirt and blue jeans.

Cleaning house

So for the past few days I've been taking care of appointments. First with CIF where I'm supposed to turn all my gear in. They only took half of my original items. I really wanted to get rid of all of it. Second, I got my household goods appointment. Basically, I lay everything I needed to ship for my next duty station. I only had a few things packed. I should've let them pack more stuff. Now I have a bit of junk left over that I have to sort through. Third, I had Housing appointment which is to clear me from my barracks room. I had way to much junk   in my room and I was quickly getting rid of it so that I could get cleared by the inspector. Oddly I've been really

2nd weekend of March

This Saturday, I woke up pretty early considering I had only 5 hours of sleep after watching "Tribute to Queen" last night.  This morning all I needed to do was clean my gear for turn in. It took me about 2 hours to finish cleaning everything that needed cleaning.

In the afternoon I was invited to hang out downtown by this Mexican kid who lived next door to me. He never picked me up at 6 when he wanted to. So I went to the shoppette and grabbed a cup of coffee. Idk but I was craving coffee that day. I just like the taste of how I mix coffee I guess. I went down there and people were commenting on how I was not sensibly dressed for the weather. Walking down the block with shoes, no socks, shorts and a thin jacket on. It was quite funny actually.

That night I spent a night at Ruegamer's. He fed me vodka/orange juice. I haven't had anything strong to drink for a while. He was playing a game with aliens in it. He was also skyping his mom while I was in the room talking bout family stuff.

I slept until about 9 in the morning. After that I went home and got some microwave lunch from a vending machine for $5. It was really good lunch. A 3 course meal in one micowable package. I continued to assess my gear for cleaning and gathering it for turn-in. I took about 2 more hours waiting for what washed to dry up.

Queen!

Today I went to the mall. I've been dying to go all week. I bought some new t-shirts for €9.99 which was a really good deal. The only store that was fair priced in the mall. I bought a shirt that had a tie scribbled on the front to make it look lilke I'm wearing an actual tie. I really liked those designs. Unlike elsewhere where a plain shirt would cost €50 a piece.

I went to one store looking for a sweater and most of them were marked €50. I pretended to look for purple specifically just to avoid the workers from making offers and making ne buy one.

I went to the bookstore as well. I bought a David Bowie CD for only €5. I saw a few albums i was familiar with in the international section
I went back home to shower and go to Crazy Bull. There was a tribute to "Queen." the band was really good. They played some of the familiar songs such as "Bohemian rhapsody," and "Under pressure." I enjoyed the show thoroughly alongside Egle and her friend Liliana. I was going tk bring my friend Rich, but he's been buzy with his girlfriend. But it's all good I still had fun either way.

Clearing process

So for the past 2 days, I've been getting my paperwork signed off doing the whole clearing process. It's pretty easy. I've completed most of the work in 2 days. I've set up appointments and everything.

Tonight I had went to the Chinese restaurant down the street. It's been a while since I've gone down there. Egle and I were talking about my move to the states. I'm definitely gonna miss Italy and my Italian friends.  But it's gonna be a start of a new life for me in Fort Gordon which is where I'm going next.

3/8/2011

Today I woke up at 5:30 am as usual, I took a shower, put on my uniform and went to formation. It was freezing this morning. I should've worn gloves, but I've tolerated most conditions before. I went to Burger King after formation with Brandt who couldn't do anything physical because of the sledding incident last Thursday.

I went to the company to pick up a clearing memo for me. The Ops guy who prepared it for me wasn't there. So  my team leader and I went through all the companies trying to procure this memo. It turns out there was one waiting for me at the Ops desk in my company.

I went to get my out processing papers and I started getting signed off on the stations I needed to clear. It was pretty easy. I took a break at 4:30 in the afternoon. I'm getting the rest done tomorrow

3/7/2011

So I woke up at 5:30 and I didn't wanna get out of bed. I showed up in regular PT's. I did a squad run that started out with about 8 people. It ended with about 5 people. The remaining squad went up to Monte Berico, We I haven't even gone up there since November. It was horrible. It was quite cold, I couldn't breathe well.

We skipped half the trail and went up the really steep steps that took us up to the bottom of the Church of Berico's base. Then we ran up the steep way to the church itself. It was a little easier. Then we ran up to the rotunda with the view of Vicenza which was really pretty. I haven't gone up there in quite a bit. We ran for about 45 minutes.

Today I just went to get my orders at 10 which weren't available yet. I came back at 1pm and then at 4pm when they came up. It was quite a headache trying to get one thing. I had an appointment at the wellness center. It was a stress relief therapy which basically consists of proper breathing techniques and using the massage chair.

3/6/2011

So today I woke up on Ruegamer's futon. I was coughing up for about an hour before I decided to go back home. That last cough was enough to get all the nasty stuff out. I hate my life because of all the mucus in my system. I shouldn't have gone to the track on Wednesday night.... and then go sledding the morning after :P

I ate a bunch of bagels this morning.... Idk the validity of those bagels because I bought them a long time ago. Unlike loaves of bread, there hasn't been any signs of molding. I thought I got sick from them because I was tired and went to lie down for about 2 hours. I just laid there... I didn't actually sleep. I was gonna go to the mall, but It was a bit late in the afternoon. I went to the commissary and got some food, then I went to the PX to get some pizza but there was no one there, so i got a quesadilla instead at taco bell;

I chatted with Lenlen for a little bit and then went to church. I went to Monty's like I normally do on Sunday nights. Tonight there was a small group of people. Rob and Karen are going to Switzerland all week and they were gonna leave at 4 in the morning the on Monday.

I ordered some fetuccini w/ mushrooms, and the italian version of a crispy pata which was actually pretty delicious and plenty for me. I also got a 1/2 liter of wine.... I start missing wine when I'm at restaurants for some reason... I just like the taste of it. I drank almost to the bottom of that liter of wine. I went home a little drunk that night.

Random stuff, my neighbor, Matt Reeves showed me and a couple other people his pictures from modeling in Italy 12 years ago. They were really good pics on the cover of the magazine: L'uomo Drink. 

3/5/2011

So today, I woke up around 8 in the morning. I slept for a good 8 hours. My roommate hasn't come back yet so I did what I needed to do that morning and not worry about making too much noise. I organized my room and then I started playing around with the guitar.

I went to ask around for anyone to go to Venice with. Unfortunately everyone was staying put. I normally ask the medics first and I caught up with Ruegamer who was supposed to go to Venice today but ended up having 8 hour hall guard duty. So I hung out with him and another guy on hall guard duty. We started watching "Freddy got fingered" on his laptop. It was a pretty weird movie. But it was funny as well.

Ruegamer and I went to the commissary to get some steaks. We cooked out on the patio along with our fellow medic Whiteneck. We made some really good steaks. We put some good flavoring on them. Ruegamer and I ended up playing videogames and watching a series. I spent a night on his futon. It was pretty nice. I guess he stayed up and played videogames until 3 in the morning because that was about the same time I woke up and went back to sleep afterwards.

I was seriously hacking up some phlegm and mucus to clear my sinuses. It was annoying. That was all I did for 2 hours after I got up. 

3/4/2011

So today is the last day of sick call for me. Oddly there were about a dozen patients. Three of them being our own medics. We had SPc Knox in charge of sick call. He was there for about 2hours until he had an appointment which left me in charge of thd clinic. I had never stayed in the clinic so long in one day. We did PDHRA screenings again for a different company this time. They just kept flowing in like flies throughout the afternoon. We had to take their blood pressures. At about 2 in the afternoon, i was sent to the clinic to get folders. I had to go twice because they wouldn't give them to me at the optometry station. I hate itzwhen people ask mE to do errands for them when i don't really know their purpose. I should definitely ask first before people start looking at me like a crazy person.

Tonigh i went to Rob Karen's house for dinner and bible study. I had a great italian dinner. Afterwards we celebrated Dolores' birthday. I played the guitar for a little bit. I just leaned how to play "Umbrella" earlier so it was a lot of fun. I caught a ride back to post with Bill and Dolores Davis. Incidentally Dolores is a Filipina and she is going to see her mother as she flies to Manila the next day. She hasn't gone back since 2003. That is quite a while. I was dropped off at my barracks. Then i started playing guitar. Then i slept.

Sledding bonanza

So today I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to go show up at 5:15 for the sledding trip. There were about 50 people going on this trip. We grabbed helmets and sign some safety forms for the trip. I didn't have gloves or eye protection, so I grabbed some from the shoppette. I got those and food for about 30 bucks which isn't bad at all.

We left at 6am and arrived around 8:30. We got ski passes handed to us which was pretty sweet! Normally they'd cost 30 euros but I guess ODR already paid for them. There was a 15 minute cable car ride to the top of the mountain. Then we grabbed a bunch of sleds for our group. They were pretty small. I imagined it would be one of the big ones that 4 people could get on.

We had a safety brief and a quick instruction on how to sled. Then we got up to the sledding trail on the top of the mountain. The first part was a smooth run considering there were about 50 people going down on the slope. The second leg of the trail didn't go so well. It was way too fast for anyone to handle. I almost ran into people, I bumped someone's sled and there were all kinds of crazy stuff that happened on the way down that leg.

There were a few people that got hurt, a few that didn't want to go again, and there were people who wanted to just go back and be smarter about it. Not like we're gonna slide 50 people down that slope again.

I did 2 runs down the trail and went to lunch. Lunch was a fixed pasta meal which cost 10 Euros for all of us. None of us could order what we wanted, it was really fixed. I did about 4 more runs down the trail after lunch. I took a shortcut on the way back to the cable cars. We left at 2pm and arrived about 5pm today. I'm still a bit sore from all the action. but it's ok.

Mar 1& 2 2011

Okay clearly I haven't updated my blog for a few days. But there really hasn't been anything special going on. I've been doing my round of sick calls. We had less patients on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I did my portion of the PDHRA which is a survey done after 90 days back from deployment. It was quick and easy. I also did my Battalion commander's checkup which was pretty cool.

I got word that there was gonna be a sledding trip tomorrow morning. It was the whole platoon going. We had to be there at 5:15 in the morning.

The aid station only ran till 4 pm the past 2 days. It was a bit tiring just sitting around waiting for everyone's checkup to be finished.

2/28/2011

So this morning, I woke up at 4:30 am. I went to the battalion around 5am. No one was there. I waited for 20 minutes and then sat in Bundy's car who was doing sick call rounds with me. The car was warm. The aid station was opened up at 5:36 today.

We signed in all the people we needed to sign in. At 6:30 we started grabbing patients to screen. It was easy, but there were a lot of people, due to the fact that it was Monday. I treated a few guys. One with a knee problem and the other with nausea, vomiting diarrhea. Nothing out of the ordinary. All this stuff I've seen down range. Treatment is the same except we don't give out any medications any more because it's in the health clinic control.

The next few hours were confusing. People kept coming up to me asking about physicals and profiles, all stuff which had to be directed to the providers' attention. We  were there until about 5pm

2/27/2011

Okay so today I woke up from a really good night's sleep. I slept for about 12 hours last night. I got out of bed, got cereal and showered and went to my friend's place. He didn't answer his door so I was getting paranoid. Ugh I had to resort to using the master key. My friend Johnson got pretty upset about me going into his room. Of course I kinda expected that. I left the building and went back to my room.

I didn't do anything the whole day because it was raining. Johnson called me at around 4pm. Obviously we weren't going to go anywhere. I just chatted with cuzin Lenlen and went to mass at 5. Afterwards there was a dinner where everyone was serving chili. I enjoyed that very much.

I just went to bed afterwards and I got ready for tomorrow. The weekend was definitely too short! But anyways I have sick call tomorrow at the aid station. I'll be doing that all week.

2/26/2011

Today I slept from 9-1:30. I called my friend to see if he were going to Venice. Turns out he's not. Ugh. And my other friend he wasn't going either till tomorrow. I ended up eating pizza with him for dinner. I just went to sleep after that. Today was really boring. But I caught up on a lot of sleep so it's ok.

2/25/2011

This morning there was a company run. In reality it was a battalion run but all the the companies were just doing their individual routes. We ran all over post this morning. And when everyone thought that the run had ended, we thought wrong. We ran twice in the same spots near the end. It was so exhausting. I've never felt tired for a run like that before. And we've only been running 30 plus minutes. We got a briefing from our Battalion commander and Battalion Sergeant Major. They talked about having a safe weekend due to all the stuff that happened including the death of that one soldier last week.

Afterwards, I prepared for staff duty. For the first 2 hours there was no NCO available. There was a slight confusion as to who was running the show. During the day there were 2 red cross messages, 1 alcohol related incident an a whole lot of stupid stuff going on the rest of the night. It was a lot busier than I expected. I couldn't stay awake around 2 in the morning, it was so exhausting.

2/24/2011

This morning for Pt formation, there were only 5 people including myself that didn't have anything to do. We tried to go to the gym but we didn't get a room to exercise in. It was quite packed. So all we did was go to Brandt's room and chat about things in the past like the deployment and funny stuff. This morning, I honestly did not have anything accomplished. I left at 11 am for lunch because there was nothing going on till 1 pm.

In the afternoon I just did a deployment packet (oddly I'm not deploying to Africa so I'm not too worried about it). They 173d can do whatever it wants in Africa. We didn't get home again until after 5. I was on the computer surfing the net for a while. I finally put all my stuff that I laid out on the floor away.

2/23/2011

Today's work day was a bit of a headache. This morning I showed up for PT and I was called out to do a urinalysis check. I got some water to drink and then I filled the bottle a few minutes later and I was done.

I showed up to work and there were only 3 people downstairs. We started chatting up about different companies and deployment stuff. Afterwards I was tasked out to create a chart. My buddy and I were about to start using pencils and stuff, but then were told to take it to the graphics studio. This thing would be processed in 4 days.

The only thing that was bothering me today was the fact that there was one certificate I had to print out. It's so fucking stupid that the site won't give me the certificate. I've gone through all the courses. My team leader and I had the same situation. I had to wait for him to print out a made up certificate for him and myself. Ugh! I'm never relying on one person anymore to get one job done. I'm gonna vary my sources for help next time. It was just stressful thinking about one subject all day.

Once again, we left work at 5:30 pm. It was so annoying. I saw my friend Johnson who was talking about going to Carnevale this weekend. Carnevale is a festival in Venice celebrated around the end of February to mid-March. I really just wanted to take it easy this weekend. I was gonna go to Katy Perry's concert in Munich, but I decided to do the other instead. I sold the tickets to Wes and Jlyn. Hmm... i'm not really sad about it because I wanted to save some money. I also just wanted to take it easy this weekend.

I can never decide what to do for food anymore.... I really have been eating a lot of pizza lately. Tonight I'm gonna go eat a kabob from down the road.

2/22/2011

So today, was the first day of the work week. I showed up in ACU's this morning because I had to do give immunuizations to tons of people. I worked with 2 companies this morning, plus a couple stragglers that decided to show up on a day not scheduled for them. I was the one signing off on paperwork after immunizations. I gave probably about 50 shots because half the time I was just signing off paperwork and directing traffic. 5 other medics and myself were there till about 4pm.  Everytime we started to leave, at least 10 people would start showing up. We finally finished closing shop and went back for a formation. We didn't get out till about 5pm. I found out I was going to have a layout for a possible deployment which I doubt I'll be a part of.

Afterwards, I took a shower. Lately I've been going to work without showering before hand. And it's been cold the past few days so I don't really sweat that much. I shined my boots for a little bit as well (I'm really conscious of how it looks because I look up close while others just look at it from ground level). Also, I set up my stuff for the layout that I mentioned earlier. I took most of my military items out of my left closet. I did it so late at night that I made so much noise and was trying not to wake my roommate up. Blast these buildings for not having separate rooms! Anyways I did that for an hour. Now there's just a bunch of stuff on the floor looking pretty for inspection. I went to sleep afterwards, for some reason I've been waking up at 3 in the morning no matter what time I wake up. I could go to sleep at 8 or 9 and wake up at 3 or 3:30 in the morning. Then I wait for my alarm to go off. It kinda sucks but whatever.

2/21/2011

Today is the last day of the 4 day weekend. I woke up about 8 am. I tried to get breakfast at the cafeteria. However, they were still closed due to the fact that they were running on weekend schedule which consists of brunch and dinner. it was 8:30, they won't open for another hour. So, I heated a hot pocket instead. My roommate's hung over from last night, so i'm trying not to make too much noise.

I was going to do a bit of studying, but I got distracted with cleaning my jump boots for tomorrow. I did that for a good 3 hours. It's funny how people think my boots are perfect, but I keep making it even more perfect like super shiny and stuff like that.

Ok, sorry to disappoint you guys, but I don't remember what I did Monday night since this is a late post that I haven't worked on. Just stay tuned though

2/20/2011

So this morning, I was woken up to the sound of my phone at 2 in the morning. Courtesy patrol was looking for me since I was supposed to be conducting team 2 of courtesy patrol. However, I was supposed to be replaced. We were looking for the guy supposed to replace me. I stood there for like 45 minutes until the right guy came up.

I went online for a littel bit. I couldn't sleep again. I had about 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I was definitely tired from all the snowboarding activities. This morning, I planned on going to the gym, but I was still tired from yesterday. I ate lunch at Subway. I sat down with Justin and his wife (I think they're married now....). I talked to them about the weekend, about the Philippines (Jane is from Batangas).

Ok so after I took lunch, I actually went to the gym for about 45 minutes doing a back/triceps workout. It's been the first workout I've done in about a month. I used to go every Sunday, but then I started getting lazy. Afterwards, I cleaned up my room. I haven't left my room a mess for more than a few hours. But this weekend, I definitely left it a mess.

I went to Monty's with Rob and friends. I had an amazing meal. I'm in love with spinach. I ordered a lot of it. Afterwards I went to skype to talk with Mom and Dad. I saw our new dog who is exactly a chihuahua/terrier mix just like Zack. He was really cute. I wanna meet him and pet him and stuff already.

Snow time!

Today was the big day for the snowboarding event which I signed up for last week. I woke up early at about 5am. I picked up my reserved rental items. The bus left at 6 and arrived to our destination: Cortina at 9 am. It was a really nice slope. It had lots of areas to explore. It was a lot better than Paganella. There were a lot of routes to go around. I hung out with a couple 2nd platoon guys. They're really cool. We went everywhere around the place. The skiers outnumbered the snowboarders. We had a lot of ridiculous falls. But it was okay coz the snow was quite powdery and not so hard. It was also sunny outside which was really awesome because you know it's a good day to go boarding.

At lunch time we went to a restaurant on top of the slopes. It was really nice and quaint. We had trouble ordering food. What I did to ease that was type our orders on my phone so that the waitress could read what we wanted. She put in what we ordered and it was ready in 20 minutes. We ate lasagna and I ordered spinach after that. We got our bill. It was quite expensive. The restaurant wouldn't have us do separate checks which was ridiculous, so I decided to use my card. They agreed to pay me back later.

                                EURO
4x COPERTO         12.00(What this is if you don't know, is gratuity. they charged 4x out of 5 people)
4X COCA               12.00
2X SPRITE               6.00
TAGLILOLINI        11.00
4X LASAGNA        34.00
SPINACI                  4.50
TOTALE                 79.00

It was already 2pm when we left the restaurant, so we did a few more runs on the slopes.  We went back down to the buses after we got done skiing from the top slope. That last few meters of that slope had me fall
and roll around a little bit in the snow. The bus left at 5pm. We got back to Vicenza around 8pm. I returned all the rental stuff and got money back from the guys. The only sad thing that went on during the day was the fact that someone died from our brigade. A young soldier was imitating moves from "Assassin's Creed" a well known video game. He was jumping across rooftops in Verona, Italy. He fell four stories in the end. He will be missed

2/18/2011

This next blog follows the events after 9am from when the last blog ended. Alright, so every CQ shift, I sleep for about 5 hours once I get off. before I went to sleep though, I had to push aside the pieces to the busted frame of our door. I woke up to see my platoon sergeant and my squad leader and the person who broke our door outside of our room being interrogated by the MP's. My roommate tried to put a work in from DPW to fix our door. But they wouldn't do it without a police report done first. That's why all those people were out there. I had to watch a good man(the one who busted our door) be put in hand cuffs and taken away to the MP station. My roommate went there as well to have written statements done. Afterwards our door was fixed, which was a relief. The rest of the night I just took it easy. I played the guitar for a little bit. Afterwards, I left for the usual Friday Hospitality House meeting.

2/17/2011

Ok so this morning I woke up at 6:15 because I decided to turn off my alarm. I went to formation and there were about 8 people in the platoon. We didn't really conduct PT, so I went back to my room and play the guitar for a little bit. I'm still figuring it out. I showed up downstairs in our spot where we wait around. I was there for about an hour with someone else from my platoon. It was just Mata and I waiting around to get something done. At about 10:30, we were told to clean the office. No big deal. It took about 1/2 hour. Then we left for lunch(lunch break that is. There was a presentation mentioned earlier that was to occur at the soldiers' theatre where there was gonna be food.) and we went to the PX. I played around with an electric guitar for a little bit and then bought gummi bears. That was pretty much my lunch. We started watching "The Other Guys" on DVD for an hour.

We went to the Black History month presentation at the Soldiers' Theater. It was an hour long speech from a retired colonel. I was sooooooooo tired, I could barely stay awake. My head was bobbing every few seconds. It was probably coz I was hungry too. Afterwards, we found out that the food they were going to serve was just biscuits, cookies and kool-aid. I was really hungry after that.

Mata and I went back to the company and sat around at the conference room. At about 4pm, we had a safety brief and a release. After that I found out I had to pull 12 hours of a CQ shift. So I took a  nap for 2 hours after that and showed up. I did 12 hours of shift. Most of it was spent listening to music, reading a book, getting drunk people into their rooms. The building smelled awful compared to the last time I lived in it. It was always smelling like detox from alcohol. I helped my NCO finish a crossword puzzle. Afterwards, the sun started showing. I started eating gummi bears. I've never eaten so much in 1 night. I got done by 9 in the morning. I took a shower, ate and went to bed.

2/16/2011

So today I woke up at 4 in the morning. Today is the first jump day for our battalion. I started buying some food to go on the detail this morning. I rode in the van with 5 other people. We got to Aviano Air-force base in about an hour. It normally takes an extra half hour to get there if you're riding a bus. We sat and slept in the van for about an hour until the jumpers' safety briefings were done. Afterwards, we rode out to the drop zone. We set up panels for the pilots to see. It was fairly easy. The first jumpers came at around 12:30. There were a total of 89 jumpers. It was nice to see everyone drop out there. There was one jumper who dropped near our vehicle. We had to back up a few meters.  

After 90 jumpers, that was all for the day. We started wrapping things up. We turned in all the necessary items to the airbase. Then we took lunch and left for Vicenza. On the way back we took a turn to Lerino, where the rigger facility was at. We were put on detail to hang chutes to dry. It took about half an hour to get them all. Then we got back to Vicenza at about 5pm. It was dark and it was pouring out. 

All I did after that was go to the Chinese restaurant and get some take-out. I got some spicy pork and some bean sprouts. After that I just went to sleep. My room has been a mess lately. But I just slept on a messy bed anyway.

2/15/2011

Okay, so today was an alright day for me. The medics and I were in the motorpool for about 5 hours. After that the guys who were jumping went to do their thing. I'm clueless about the one thing that this unit's one specialty. I am not airborne qualified, which gives me the advantage to sham out(as in do my own thing) for a few hours while they do their training(it's theirs coz I'm surely not part of it).

They finished what they were doing and after that I got a call saying that I had to do a detail for the drop zone tomorrow. It seemed easy.

I met up with my friend Egle. It was her birthday yesterday and she had just come back from Barcelona. She has spent 2 birthdays there. We went to the Chinese restaurant down the road. We had a small dinner, we shared each other's food. LOL, we gave each other half of what we ordered. I drank a little bit of Chinese beer. I went to sleep early coz I had to wake up at 4 in the morning. 

Valentines

Happy Valentines everyone! Ok, Valentines day is actually just a regular day for me. There's nothing really interesting that happens on that day(at least for me that is). Today the medics and I spent a whole day at the motorpool! Taking out boxes, lifting heavy things. We were doing an inventory. That stuff is never fun. I've been through them multiple times. Half the time I don't even know what's going on. We got out of work at 5:30 pm. I was tired and kinda sore from all the activity.

I got home and chatted with my sister for a bit. Our conversations are usually fun. And I normally catch her when she's doing homework or when she's starting to do it. I ordered a pizza at Il Fauno's (so typical). This time I had Hawaiian because I ate a Hawaiian pizza earlier in the day. I went to sleep right after that. 

2/13/2011

Today is the day before Valentine's day. I had a bit of a busy day. I worked on a clinic packet for about 6 hours today. There was also something else I had to finish, which had a lot of stuff put into it. As if I had time to go through most of it. I just skimmed the important parts.

This morning, I called my Grandpa's house, unfortunately he and my Grandma were about to go to bed. I called later than usual. I normally call around 11:00. Today I called at 12:30. Anyways, I didn't get to talk to the usual group of aunts and uncles and my grandpa in one call, but that's ok. I just make calls on Sundays.

I chatted with my cousin earlier this afternoon, ate some pork rinds and girl scout cookies.... didn't seem like a good choice for lunch.

I went out to dinner with Rob and Karen and the crew. I had a really good dinner. I had veal, lasagna and some spinach. I added more spinach to my plate lol coz it was that good. I also had some of their white wine. I guess my weekend wasn't that interesting. but I made the best of it, after spending some time outside. 

2/12/2011

Today was an oddly busy day for a Saturday. I worked on a clinic packet for about 8 hours. Well actually 6, if you don't count lunch and miscellaneous activities. But anyways, I worked on some papers for about that amount of time. It's my own fault I guess since I've been putting off all that work(sigh).

At around 6pm I stopped everything to go out with Rob and Karen and a few others to a pizzeria (I didn't mention the fact that I had to cancel a trip to Verona with them today. Ugh.... I never get to see the real Verona).  We didn't get any pizza because all the pizzerias were full until 9 pm. We got kabobs instead. We chilled at the Hospitality House for about 2 hours. I was glad I got over there, my brain would've been fried from  staring at the computer for hours! Plus The Hospitality House crew's company is somewhat a spiritual relief. I never thought of it that way until now. 

Forgive me if I say this... but I'm not caught up with the world's current events.... Must read on Egypt and other world news. My day was not really the best, however the few hours I gave myself a break was the best idea. I wouldn't want to truly lose my mind doing one tedious all day. It was probably the best part of this Saturday. I didn't go out either, which was good. I didn't want to spend a few Euros last night. Oh and I called home last night which was also the best feeling in the world. Mom called me at like 5 am on a Saturday morning and I was a little groggy. :P

2/11/2011

So it's Friday. It's supposed to be the most chill part of the week. This morning we played football again! I don't even like foot ball. However, this game was interesting. I scored a touchdown at some point(who would've guessed right?). And then there were a few interesting moments during the game.

The work day started out with an online class that took forever. I'm only halfway into it. I had another appointment with behavioral health. Things were a lot different from all the other sessions. The more sessions I go to, the less there is to talk about. And most of the topics are stuff from previous appointments. This one was a little dull for me. I went on to finish more paperwork. I had to work on them for a few hours. All the work I've been putting off has caught up with me. I thought that only working 2 days out of the week would be actually be a piece of cake. 

2/10/2011

For PT this morning, We did a ruck march. It was only for a few miles. I hate Thursdays because of this. It hurts my feet. I'm struggling to keep up most of the time because some people just walk fast. I haven't fallen out of these rucking events since we've done them out here. I have learned a few techniques on how to keep stay the same pace. I'm always pushing myself even though sometimes I fear that I may get hurt at some point.

I hate it when people think they're better than me just because they're airborne qualified and I'm not. I'm about to leave this unit and I used to work hard and actually care about being airborne qualified, but my chances were shot down back in 09. Now I just don't care, because I know I can do my job well. And that's all that matters.

We had a 4 hour finance class to help us with our money and budget this morning. Half the time I was thinking of something else, I took a few important notes. The speaker gave a few websites to help out with our questions as well. I wrote them down. 

After being released, I went back to my room at around 4pm . I played around with the guitar. I learned a few songs. I started blasting my music, I was just enjoying myself for a while. Then I wanted to get a subway sandwich. Guess what? They changed their opening times. Now there won't be anything open at 8pm. I also wanted to play with the display at the Powerzone. 

I just went and ate a taquito from the shoppette. I saw BK and I considered that only i there were  a last ditch resort if I can''t find anything else to eat. I went back to my room and started FB chats. 

2/9/2011

I slept from 9-3 after i got off from staff duty. I took breakfast before i went to sleep. My roommate got into a singles' retreat so i'm pretty much in the room by myself.

I went to my wellness center appointment. The whole stress relief program was totally different from the way it was before. I was taught breathing tecniques and I messed around with the massage chair.

I went to the PX to buy some document protectors. Afterwards I started attaching lights to my bike which was a bit of a pain because of it's anatomy.

I put frozen pizza in the oven. I've been eating pizza for dinner for a while. Mostly from Il Fauno's the restaurant down the street.

2/8/2011

Today I woke up this morning at 6. I went to formation and took accountability of my team. This morning we had a urinalysis test. I started Brigade staff duty at 0900. It was kinda busy on my part coz I was answering a lot of phone calls. I answered some crazy ass phone calls this morning. Like this one lady who was talking about a shipping container that belonged to the 1-503d battalion. I redirected her to some other people since that was not my problem. Through the course of the afternoon I just kept answering phone calls.

The place seemed to become less busy once everybody started leaving from work. The four of us who were there took turns in taking 2 hour breaks. I've tried to rest for a little bit. But it's hard knowing that you have to wake up again at a certain time. I kept reading my book "La bruja de Portobello." It's in Spanish and I've been reading it on and off for a while. I'm kinda slow at reading books most of the time. I've just been bookmarking the spot where I left off.

I got back to the office and it was just business as usual. I'm gonna go to sleep at 9:00 today. It's really cold this morning.

2/7/2011

Today is the day of the superbowl. I woke up at around 8 in the morning while everyone else watched the superbowl at the earliest times. I don't really know much about football so I don't really care much for it.

I went to the Tax office this morning. I was there for 3 hours. I filed 3 years worth of taxes. Not much went on the rest of the afternoon, except I was just messing around at the PX and left. I went to the library, picked out some CD's (uhhh it's been a long time since i actually had the desire to burn CD's into my laptop). I took a nap around 5.

I woke up and had a long converation with Dev. I'm not gonna share the details since it's rather private. Also had a talk with Egle. She's madly in love with her ex. Uhhh! I can't believe I know him.... I hate being in the middle of things.

I have Brigade staff duty tomorrow. It's gonna go on for 24 hours. It's gonna be me, 2 other people and an E7. It's ok I guess coz I'll be working only 3 days out of the week.

2/6/2011

This morning I woke up at quarter till 11. I called the house in Carbide Village, Philippines where surely enough on Sunday people would be there having dinner at my grandparents' house. I was answered by Tita Char, oddly she is the first one to pick up the phone. She told me they were celebrating my uncle's birthday. She asked if I wanted to talk to my Grandma. She put my Grandma on the phone. That was the first time I've talked to her since the time I was actually there in the Philippines. She asked me where I was, and I told her Italy. She asked me a few more questions, but I started not to comprehend her later on. 

I ate brunch at the DFAC. I almost missed it because it ends at 1230 and I got off the computer at the same time. It's actually open just for a few minutes after the designated time line. I went to the PX for a little bit(I was actually there for quite a while). I was browsing around, playing on their new keyboards which were on display. I got bored after a while. I looked through their music collection and bargain area for DVD's. I bought a Michael Jackson CD, Harry Potter 5 for only 5 bucks(!) and also the movie District 9.

I went back home and chatted with my cousin Lenlen. I told her that I felt I had a problem. She rushed to assume I was on hard drugs :P (Buying drugs would make my problem worse anyway!) But I told her I felt I spend too much money coz I'm bored. And for anyone who's reading this, most of you would agree that this is a big problem. Man I need to control myself. Lately I've been buying media from the store. IE: DVD's, CD's etc. I'm tempted to buy electronics as well. However.... I dont' really wanna waste that much money. I just drool over them (seems better than actually buying them).

I went to Church at around 5:30 pm. I was insanely hungry when I went over there. I couldn't actually concentrate on what was going on. For some reason DFAC food just does not fill me up that much. I hate that, because I'm relying on their food to sustain me for 6hours at least. It's just never enough! After the mass, I rode with Rob and Karen along with our group of friends to Monty's. We had our usual Sunday night dinners. the food was really good. 

2/5/2011

Yesterday I spent a whole afternoon at Dev's place. We watched 3 movies: Salt, Easy A and Barry Mundae. He made me pancakes for lunch which were really good with nutella on top of them. Andy Taylor came over and we started watching midgets with him. It was quite a laugh.

I left Dev's place to get ready to go to Art Cafe where there was a Marilyn Manson tribute. I got dressed, went to Il Fauno's down the road. I was really hungry! For some reason, I'm addicted to Penne alla Speck. For those of you who didn't know, Speck is a really good type of ham. It's quite addictive!  It's some really good ass ham! And I also ordered some calamare, another one of my favorites.

Dev and I went to Art Cafe with Matt Reeves. He paid for our cab ride there and I got him drinks to be even. Never again will I lean over the counter at the bar. There's always some form of liquor that has spilt from the confines of the glass(es) and they start smelling awful.

There was a pretty good show last night. I took some pictures and videos from the performance. It's not really my scene, but I like Marilyn Manson and some of his songs like: Personal Jesus, Sweet dreams and MObscene.

Stayed an hour after the show hanging out, talking to people, took a few shots and then went home with Dev who was pretty drunk at the time. More drunk than last weekend. I only spent like 20 euros for the entire night.