And What Now?

Been awhile... Things are good... as good as things can be, right now, at least... I seemm to still have a problem updating this at al regularly... but today will be an exception... There are some things i need to type out...

Had biology yesterday afternoon. Did a presentation on nutrition... went alright. Could have gone better, but i def hadn't prepared properly, so... eh. During break, i caught sight of a set of ACU's, and upon closer inspection, saw my recruiter at a table doing his thing...

So i headed over to say Hi. He was ironically showing a prospect -my- contract from when i enlisted, i stuck around a bit to talk to the prospect and my recruiter asked me to swing by after class. So i did. First thing out of his mouth after i sat down was "Do you want to go active duty?"

And how did i respond? First word out of my mouth was "when?"...

Then i realized what i had just said... and actually stopped to think about it. Started to think about school... about the apt... the kittens... Jaden... My mom and sister... and all the other things going on in my life right now that have opposite paths than active duty would...

So why did i respond the way i did? Why was my instinctual reaction to his question, yes?

Do I want to be on active duty? A large part of me thinks so... But its a big decision... life changing even... something i've got to think through... when I enlisted i didnt' think at all. They called, and I signed up... I can't do that again...

So... Pro's. What would be good about me going Active?

Pay- Active duty pay is a heckuva lot better than my security gaurd gig... and its garunteed. No worrying about hours being available or overtime or anything like that...
Exercise- I'd have to do PT again. Wouldn't have a choice... it would keep me fit
Schedule- Things would be regular again. x y and z would happen, every day, the way it should be... no more working at night school during the day, drill on a weekend, with all the random changes
Skills- I'd be doing what i'm trained for. Working in the capacity of a medic and upkeeping my skillset. No longer being stuck in this security job gig being overqualified and underpaid
Pride- It may be superficial... But I miss waking up every morning and putting on the uniform. Ever since my deployment thats been a huge hole in my life that i've not been able to fill... almost to the point that i've started to let myself go, because i have trouble feeling the self worth that i had when i was deployed
Education- Possible E-Army-U... Soldier to Teacher Program...
Training- EFMB, Airborne or Air Assault, Flight Medic, Physical Therapist, or other identifiers?
Location- Recruiter said i'd have Choice of Duty Station... depending on whats available that could be a plus...


And ofcourse there are always Con's... Possible negative things about active duty?

FRAGO's- Nature of the beast, things change and change often... never know what might come up
Deployment- A strong possibility of one or even multiple deployments...
Body- Increased physical stress on my seemingly already failing body, most pointedly knees
Time- I'd have to sign a new contract, and my time in would start over again and go until whatever it is that they're offering now...
Relocation- Active duty means being at an Active Duty Facility... None of those here in Iowa... I'd have to move somwhere... Leaving behind Mom and Sis... and Dad... And friends, again.
Education- Would have to discontinue the pursuit of my kirkwood degree
Adjustment- I would have to be introduced to and change over to an Active Duty mentality and lifestyle. Something i've been around but never fully a part of before


So now what? I'm going to start researching the option... figure out the details about soldier to teacher... if i'm eligible and what it requires... what the current active enlistment period is for the contract length... any bonuses... do all my homework online... Then I'll go in. I'll see what the recruiter has to tell me...

Check into what Duty Stations are available to choose from and/or benefits available... See how the transition works and what the logistics of it all would be. Jaden, for example. She'd come with me, shes told me as much. But we aren't married, she's not my dependent. So I need to find out how thats going to work. The army will see me as single unaccompanied... I'll need to know how housing will work because if i do it, I'm -going- to live with her and the kittensies. period.

What else? E Army U. Depending on what the soldier teacher things all about, i'll need to look into E Army U, which is a away for active duty soldiers to take college courses no matter where they are from a large co-op of accredited schools.

Rank? Will I have to take a rank reduction or will i hang onto the E-4 i already have? And whatever other differences the transition would cause... Like the bonus that i got for enlisting reserve side? Still have a pair of installments left to be paid on it, would they dissapear or would i still get them? and my GI bill? lots of questions it seems will need to be answered, for sure. And As I stated above, I've got to take it slow and do my homework. This isn't one of those things i can just hop on and hope for the best... This is serious.

Nothing i can do now at work, however. After class... when i get home from school... I'll start on the research... See what i can figure out. Maybe things will work out afterall... we'll see...

I've always felt out of place in the reserve life. Never fit in with that system or the mentality of its people. But I've never been a total active duty grunt, either. Things could get interesting... Oi. But I've gotta get to these readings for History class right now... four more hours of work before class time... then i'll be home and can start into figuring this all out.

Till then,
Be easy

Spread too thin

Oi its been a week... Thats for sure...

Was called in 6 hours early on wed, and now going in 4 hours early tonight... works definitely taking its toll on me this week. I'm so tired right now i can barely think... much less study... i'm hoping that I can get enough of a power nap this afternoon that I'll be able to work on some homework tomorrow...

Went to lunch yesterday with the ex before the ex... Was fun... nostalgic... Its great to be able to talk to and get along with her. I only hope someday the recent ex will follow suit, because right now she won't speak to me at all. Anyway, the double ex and I had lunch, then talked out in the parking lot for a long time.

Jaden had a floor social last night... anything goes but clothes theme... She sent me some pics and it made me miss her impossibly more... Trash bag skit and all... Looked like she had alot of fun, despite saying she couldn't cause (I) wouldn't be there... I"m glad it seems she did.

I'm getting tired again... gonna try for nap number two...

And then there was Now

Been awhile... Stuffs happened... Decided for awhile i didn't need to write anything here... changed my mind now, so here goes it:

Life had taken an extraordinary turn in the last pair of months, and I feel as though I'm in a much better place now-a-days. I mentioned a friend of mine, before, that I went to a Halloween party she was having? Jaden. Well, take a seat and let me tell you a little about Jaden.

We met just shy of four years ago when I started college... first day I got there, actually. I was starting to move things into the new room and my roommate who was at the time my good friend from high school had already moved all his stuff in. He mentioned that there was some girl that had stopped by and introduced herself as the 'noble chic' (Noble was the name of our house in the dormitory) and i can't remember quite how he'd described her, but it was something along the lines of overly friendly....

Anyway, she did end up stopping by again a little later and thats when she meant, and she did come off a little overly friendly and quite happy. I wasn't sure how to take it at the time, but was intrigued none the less. *giggles* I still remember the next day my roommate and I left the room to go take showers and she was there, right in the hallway offering up a cheery good morning that neither of us were ready to hear.

Don't remember exactly what led to the furthering of the friendship that was soon to be formed, but nevertheless, Jaden and I got to talking and spending time together. We soon discovered that by some odd twist of fate we seemed to live parallel lives; in that one of us had experienced or was experiencing a very similar situation to the one the other was currently dealing with... so we spent lots of time helping each other through some pretty difficult situations over the year that i spent there...

It was pretty hard to say goodbye, when i left to go join the Army, and i never bothered to realize the significance until now that she was the only person up at Ames that I went to go say goodbye to. I said bye to the rest of the gang, too, but it was her that I actually drove up to see. heh.

She wrote to me while i was in training... when no one else really did, and i wrote back as much as I could. I went and visited her over X-mas break... And we kept in touch and were there for each others issues as much as possible after that. It was a phenomenon that was greatly welcomed, that the time apart and large spurts of in-communication never seemed to dim the friendship we'd formed in that short year at school...

Which brings me 'round to the present times, and the halloween party... Id written to jaden after everything went down with the ex, to get some help, but also just to let her know i'd come back from the deployment... And a few times after that for help dealing w things as well. And it was decided that i needed to come visit... ala halloween party. So I did, and we had a splendid time over the weekend just hanging out. So a weekend or two later, after a particularly rough week of mine, i invited her down to hang out at my place for a weekend, to which she happily agreed. And we hung out some more...

We'd Always been uber comfortable around each other, and had always been strictly friends, never really entertaining any other notions. So sleeping in the same bed the previous weekend, and again this time was nothing foreign, nor an issue for us, even with me recently singled, and her engaged. But something happened that weekend... And that line ended up getting crossed and a new light suddenly shown down on the relationship between us... And I saw her differently, yet I felt as though i'd always seen it, just never let it get through?

We kept in touch and texted furiously after that weekend, mutually sorting through our respective feelings emotions and situations as we tried to figure out exactly what was going on... Eventually coming to the conclusion that we couldn't ignore the what if and needed to see what was going on... The engagement was called of and we spent another pair of weekends together before finally giving into the ebb and flow life was propelling us through and made it official.

Its been almost two months now since declaring the relationship and she's left for Canada a month ago. finishing up school on a study abroad. I've started school her at home and we keep in touch over IM nearly daily if we can, writing letters when we can't. *smiles* I'm happy. And she's Happy... And together the happiness is present ;)

I can't ask for a more supportive, uplifting, tolerant individual and i'm eternally grateful that fate has seen fit to bring her so fully into my life.

So thats my update for now... I promise to make a conscious effort to get here and type things out a little more often in the upcoming future.