This week was a kind of a weird week for Troop 35 at Depot. I have been calling it guest speaker week. We had a variety of guest speakers but we also had one night detachment which is always a nice change. It was also the week were we found out which province we are going to.
The big news first. I am going to D Division, Manitoba. This was kind of a shock for me, I had put Manitoba as third on my list, but I am not disappointed. In our troop there were 2 going to Manitoba, 4 to Saskatchewan, 2 to New Brunswick, 2 to Newfoundland, 4 to Alberta, 1 to Nova Scotia and 13 to British Columbia. So the majority of the troop is going to BC, which was expected. There were a few surprises but most people got the provinces they wanted.
So that day we had to hand in a sheet listing the detachments we would like to be posted. I had a talk with one of my corporals who was from Manitoba and I listed off about 12 detachments that I would like to be sent off to. We should hear in a couple weeks where we are going.....oh the excitement!!
Our first guest speaker was about suicide, and signs to look for when we are dealing with someone who might be suicidal. A very interesting but very serious topic.
The next topic we had was impaired driving, we had a representative from SADD (Students Against Drinking and Driving) come in and we got to wear these goggles that simulate someone who is well over the legal limit. This made for an interesting class when two people tried to play a simple game of catch with those goggles one.
Tuesday brought our night detachment. I like night detachments because you don't have to go to morning parade, you don't have to go to an early breakfast. It is one of the only times you get to sleep past 6:00am at Depot. We did impaired driver scenarios, were we each had the opportunity to play a drunk and a cop. I thought I was quite convincing as a drunk, so did the people arresting me.
Then we had a guest speaker on stress and stress management. This was a nice class because there was a time in the class where we shown a relaxation video and the doctor who was showing it said we could sleep during it. Now if you give a cadet who has been sleep deprived for about 4 months a chance to sleep chances are they will sleep. After about 5 minutes I looked around the class and saw that about 9 out of 10 cadets were out. I tried to sleep but I couldn't go out, but it was a nice change for a class.
The last guest speaker we had this week was on addiction. It was a very informative lecture on the warning signs that someone might have an addiction problem. It also showed us how an addiction can completely take over a person's life.
Mixed into this week was our ground fighting, which is almost done now. We learned some more dirty fighting and are getting ready for the last PDT test which comes up in a couple of weeks.
Firearms for myself is doing quite well. We had a session this week which was practice for the qualifications which comes in a week or so. I am shooting well enough right now to get crossed pistols on my red serge which is my goal.
A pretty slow week from a Depot point of view, next week we might have qualifications for pistols and we have our highway/gravel road drive in PDU. Rings is coming for ground fighting and our final PARE is on Monday. So next week looks a bit more busy.
A quick note on pictures. You can tell that there have been no pictures added to the site in a long while, this is due to a new policy that is effect. Security issues have been spotted on a few cadet pages concerning pictures. So I will be taking down the pictures I have up and will not be adding any for the duration of my time at Depot. GO 35!!! 6 Weeks left!!!