SUNDAY, JUNE 27, 2004. 0814

GOOD MORNING! --recruit writing. It's a habit now.

0600 came early, as always, especially because when the Officer of the Deck (or person that's monitoring the "ship" for any given time frame throughout the day) comes in in the middle of the night to tour the compartment, he or she usually likes to yell a lot and wake everyone up and say silley, nasty things just because everyone's asleep and he or she isn't. Sometimes, I sleep right through their visits, but the one that came in last night was really aweful, really power-happy, and extremely grouchy. So she woke up everyone she possibly could, including pretty much every divisional staff member, in the sense that she woke almost everyone up with her voice, but actually forced several of us to get out of bed to do this or that.

Meanwhile, my boots are nice and shiny, I'm gonna take a shower in just a minute, and do lots of ironing later on, as well as FINALLY attend a church service for the first time since I arrived. We were taught how to iron in military creases yesterday, so I'll have those going on soon. And a couple more letters to write, and then I'll be ready when holiday routine ends at 1530 and we get back into the military swing of things.

I'm refusing to allow myself to actually do the math and figure out what my pay averages out to per hour, considering that we all work 7 days a week except for 8 of the 15 hours on Sunday, and I for one am sort of working 24-7 because even at night I can be woken up for any problems, and during holiday routine people still ask me stuff. But as long as I don't do the math or think about how much they'll be taking out of my first paycheck for my ditty bag, I feel like I'm making plenty enough. Oh, then there's taxes. But I do get free medical and dental, and all my food and clothing is taken care of, so it should be fine. And the food here, as I mentioned, is Really good! This morning for chow, I had Corn Pops, hash browns, french toast, a banana, and poweraid. A far cry from the former norm of the military! So yes, I'm doing well enough here, especially when I'm not to do the physical training stuff.

And now it's time to say good bye, for another week... USA (A good time was had by all) NAV (V as in c'est la vie) Y BOOT Camp... OK, nevermind that. I tried.

The end.

[ed: Patty also says: tell everyone to send pictures and funny clips (very G-rated) to make me laugh!]