I was feeling sick day in class with a really bad headache (all thanks to the flu shot I got on Wednesday. My immune system handled the flu just fine, but then was too busy to take care of the cold I was catching), and my class leader was kind enough to let me borrow his sunglasses. Of course, he then snuck a picture of me, because apparently he thought I looked cool in the glasses.

The Marine in the background is is Pak Han Kil, who's in one of the other two small classes. The headless Airman next to Pak Han Kil is Lee Geon Woo, and the half a Soldier next to me is Han Jae Son. (Korean names used for anonymity.

And, of course, the focus of the photo is on Tae Ah Reum (a.k.a. Noble).

I'm pretty sure you all are going to think I look pretty weird in a military uniform, but by now, I think I look completely normal in that uniform. I have been wearing it almost every day for the past four months, and I will continue to wear it almost every day until I'm almost 28. I would put up pictures of me in my blues, but I don't have any. They're all with my mom.

Anyway, enjoy seeing me in uniform.

On Best Friends (who happen to be guys)

So, since being here in California I have made a lot of friends. And when I say a lot, I  mean more friends than I have had my entire life combined. I love it. I always have people to talk to, people to say hi to, and everyone always says hi back. And quite a few of my friends are men, which has taken me by pleasent surprise. I have found that BMT has almost completely stripped shyness from my personality, and I don't have a hard time talking with guys now. Too much, anyway. I still struggle to get up the gumption to talk to the cute ones I don't know too well.

Anyway, I always seem to find myself surrounded by males. And this is completely unintentional and totally beyond my control. The group I traveled to BMT was all men, the group I traveled from BMT was all men, the class I'm in here is all men, and about half the time I find myself with a group of guys. This is not a bad thing, in my opinion. I have grown up surrounded by boys, so they really aren't a mystery to me, and once I realized how much they are like my brothers, I wasn't so awkward around them. (And some of them really are exactly like my brothers, it's almost scary)

San Francisco

You are getting a whole slew of posts today.

I've made a good friend here. We have a lot of things in common, and we always end up talking for hours on the weekends. One day, a couple of weeks ago, I told her about NaNoWriMo and how I kind of wanted to go to San Francisco during November to visit the people who are in charge. It was just a theoretical idea, something I wished I could do. She liked the idea a lot. In fact, she liked it so much, that I now have plans to go spend a weekend in San Fran in November.

There's one week in November when we have a four day weekend, and as soon as we are released, we are going to pick up our rental car and drive up to San Fran. We're going to check in to a hotel we'll get, then we're going to party all weekend long. I have a very long list of things we're going to do, and it's going to be interesting fitting everything in.

But, I've never been so excited about something in my life. I'm actually going to get to go on a fun trip with a friend, I'm going to get to drive a car again, and stay in a hotel. I'm going to get to go to all the fun places in San Fran, I'm going to get to meet the people who run NaNoWriMo, and I'm going to have a blast doing it.

Sometimes I think I'm crazy

Sometimes, usually during the week, I start to feel like I must have been crazy when I signed on the dotted line to join the Air Force. Korean is really kicking my butt, PT is something I'm starting to hate even more, (especially running because my legs always hurt afterwards), I eat less during meals because I'm so stressed and then try to make up for it by eating junk food, I sleep very little because I have so much homework and studying to do, I spend money like a drunken Marine (familial inside joke), et cetera.

Then, there are times, usually during the weekend, when I really am happy with my decision to get out of my parents house and live my own life. Like when I try on an outfit I just bought and realize how skinny and pretty my body looks, and how I can actually afford nice outfits that flatter me, aand how I have so many friends now, more than I have ever had in my life before. And also how I'm learning how to speak my favorite language in the whole world, and how if I somehow manage to survive the course, I will be able to communicate in Korean. The fan-girl in me loves this idea.

Anyway, life has had a lot of ups and downs this last week. I'm always glad when I reach the weekend, and, like at BMT, the days are long and the weeks are short. I've started to work on fixing my procrastination problem, because that and being lazy are my two biggest weaknesses. And I really don't like having weaknesses, especially not those two.

Life at the Defense Language Institute

So, Mom has been trying to get me to post about my life here for a while, and since today is a calm day when I don't really have anything to do (except finish homework, but that's for a later story) I figured I could take the time to do so today.

As you all know, I graduated Air Force basic at the end of July. August 1st, I woke up at 2:30 in the morning to out-process and ride a bus to the airport to catch a 7am flight to San Francisco. I traveled with a group of five other linguists, all of them male (as it always seems to happen). I made friends with most of them, when I wasn't passed out from exhaustion, and spent most of the day at the USO there at the airport while we waited for the other groups to arrive. Then we got on another bus and drove for about 3 hours to the base (the Army calls it a post). Then we did some in-processing stuff, and I was in bed asleep by eleven. So a very long day.

Just so you all know

I'm still alive, I've just been super busy. I mean, I'm trying to become fluent in a foreign language in less than one and a half years. You can imagine how hectic that is. But, I'm alive.