So today was what I considered to be the first actual day of processing. We actually got around to doing more today, and I actually managed to get a bit of stuff taken care of. The day started with me waking up at 6:00 AM to make it down to NOB to join the rest of the guys in some good ol’ fashioned PT.
And of course, when I got down there, that’s exactly what it was.
I’ll be honest: I’m not a big PT nut. Not by a longshot. I’d probably rather get laryngitis again than to have to go through PT. However, comma, I do realize that it’s a necessary evil if you don’t want to turn into a fat blob and not look your best (not to mention I actually feel better when I’m more active. What a novel concept, right? But anyway, the reason that I don’t care for PT—or at least, Navy PT—is because of all the retarded stuff that comes along with it.
I fully realize that the Navy is a team-based corporation, and that everyone has to work together to meet our shared goals. However, when I’m out there doing the whole exercise thing, having someone yell at me that they can’t hear me (and by “me”, I mean “me” in general… as in, all of us), and pouring on the enthusiasm, be it false or otherwise. If there’s people out there that aren’t chanting, or aren’t doing the exercises, by all means, let them choose to not participate. They’re only hurting themselves through failing to exercise, and hurting nobody by not chanting.
Anyway, it was a relatively straightforward PT session. We had pushups, we had crunches, and we had lunges. All this followed with some running. Really, I’m never surprised by what comes with exercising, except by what names the different facilitators call the exercises.
Once we got done there, I went back to my old command and used the showers there to get all squeaky clean, and then I went to the NEX mini-mart across the street to get me something to drink, and a snack to snack on at the processing site in what I had a feeling would be quite a bit more downtime.
As I start my car, the horn blares out on base, letting everyone know that they’re about to go through morning colors. And as the national anthem plays, I’m actually quite saddened by just how few people are stopped in their vehicles.
None.
Except me.
I don’t really buy into a lot of the tradition that the Navy practices, nor do I find a lot of pride in my work anymore (my attitude has gone downhill quite a bit since I first got here four years ago), but there’s just some things that I can’t imagine not observing. Stopping your car and respecting the national anthem by doing so is one of these things, and I have yet to fail to do it.
But anyway.
I then headed over to Dental with a copy of my orders, my tri-fold record that they’d given me from the processing site with a good handful of contact numbers on the front, and a small laminated card with even more laminated numbers, in the event that they decided to be a pain in my ace once again.
But surprisingly enough, not today. Today I had a different individual, and all she asked was that I fill out the pink slip inside my record with where I was going, how long I’d be gone, and a contact number in the event I failed to return my record.
What makes me giggle a bit about this is that when I told a few people about how this morning’s encounter went, they told me that it was unnecessary and blah blah blah. And even funnier still is that these are the same people that didn’t find anything wrong with Dental being a pain earlier on in the processing agenda.
Moving along, I got back to the processing site, and they were quick to launch into the medical and dental processing/screening/etc. for the day. They went group by group, getting to foxtrot in roughly about two hours, giving us just enough time to watch through The Longest Yard… when it wasn’t skipping in the DVD player.
But I’m happy to report that I was all set to go without any additional shots, and my medical and dental processing is finally complete and good to go so far as the IA guys are concerned, which is muy bueno. They let me go at 11:45 AM, and I headed back to my command to go out to lunch with one of the admin types upstairs, since she said she’s gonna miss me while I’m gone.
It’s actually kinda interesting to note, by the way, how much I’ll apparently be missed when I’m gone. I didn’t think that it’d be a big deal, especially for people that I don’t think I know very well, but I guess it’s a bigger deal than I originally thought.
Anyway, after all that, I went home and fell asleep for a bit, and then went out with a friend to pick up the Penske moving truck that I’d reserved. The problem with this whole thing lay in the fact that I scheduled the truck for pickup at 4:00 PM, and since processing started, I had no idea whether I’d actually be able to swing it.
Fortunately, I was, but now I’m unsure as to how it’ll go for drop off tomorrow, as it needs to be dropped off at 4:18 PM, and we have a deployment brief at 1:00, which I’m sure will span a good few hours in true Navy fashion.
The best part about it, of course, is that it’s a Fleet and Family Services Support deployment brief. Which means that in addition to the stuff that applies to me, I’m also gonna be getting talked to about crap that doesn’t apply to me. But
anyway.
That’s roughly about all that I did today. Had a conversation with a couple random Navy guys who also live in the apartment complex I live in, and in addition to some random stuff they had against the complex itself, they also said that going to Afghanistan isn’t all that bad. They’ve got the basic luxuries down there, and it’s all pretty safe. But most intriguing, was that one of them said it’d be very easy to come back with over $40,000.00.
That’s freaking amazing.
And I’ll strive to do that.
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