02.16.99 -- Too much time for Nothing

99/93/100 on my first test (3 parts) So a 97% average so far. It's OK, but I'd hoped for a 100%. Sigh. Oh well -- still good though.

Pizza for lunch -- another gorge fest. Spades w/ Anerson, Toolin, & CB. Linen turn in goofed around w/ Anderson & Toolin also -- cute gal, to an extent. Spivey thinks we'd make a good couple -- but the tiem frame here makes it a no-go.

No PT this morning. Lost my canteen (#3) last night. Borrowing Inkelaar's for now...Mailing the airborne teddy bears today (hopefully)

Talked w/ my parents via telephone yesterday morning -- things are well -- both quite happy to hear from me. Dad's on his way back to Germany for work. I actually used up a calling card -- 28 minutes. 1st time I've actually dusted one.

Douglas, Gamaro, Rivas, & Wright failed at least one part of our first test -- little mistakes can kill, but I must say, if none of the others, Wright's failing is a surprise and three quarters.

Yesterday (for the record) was a holiday. President's Day. Ate dinner w/ Anderson on the 14th...

I miss Chuck (nrrdboy) & Sarah (the other one), and Darcie's journals -- also Jen. I wonder how they are all doing -- how much have I missed in 4 months? It's so very frustrating having this 266 mhz Pentium II in front of me & not being allowed online...so very frustrating when it's all just a double click away...I needed to pick up diskettes this weekend or have someone do it for me -- so I could begin again typing up these entries...so much down time in this class.

Just now (1500), typing, I had a flashback to my 1st year in Arcata -- the HEadwaters Protest I participated in, my roomate from the Netherlands, my 1st cigarettes that got me addicted, Kyle and Lisa, Alisandra (& year 2...), the professors there & Jim Dodge's Fiction...SO many light years away -- such a different person. Age makes the past seem unreal. I can hardly imagine myself at the Grand Canyon, though I can still recall the horror and nausea and faintness, the pain and desperation.

I was thinking about my father the other night -- What secrets does he hold? What mind-numbing experiences does he keep inside? His staunch disapproval of youth's with fast cars...a friend's accident perhaps? An accident he was in w/ another person driving?

I told my mother, on the phone, about my reluctance to become an engineer -- my probably movement into teaching. Still don't have life planned out yet. Maybe the military is where I belong?

Of course I've finished today's exercise earlier than nearly all, Kennedy, as usual, being the exception. This class really should be learn at your pace. Backto Phase I haircut -- Ft. Jackson's new policy is 1/50 " sides, 1/4 " top for all IETs...so all 1/50" is easiet...Kennedy cut my hairs last night -- good man and friend.

Keller graduates & leaves her in 17 days. One the phone last night, he beconed me over, handed me the receiver, and said, "Say hi Emily."
"Hi Emily." (To Keller, "Should I say anything else?") She laughed...