Sorry about the long silence–they’ve been keeping us busy here at Squadron Officer School. Lots of briefings, papers, and various group problem-solving challenges which range the gamut from indoor logic puzzles (I tend to do well with these) to outdoor obstacle-course type things (I’m not as good at these, since often they require a LOT of upper-body strength that, even as a relatively strong woman, I just don’t have in a way that can compete with one of the guys).
I’ve found a place in the group and I even speak up, especially in planning sessions when it seems like there’s an obvious answer and no one else wants to take the lead. I really enjoy the people I’m spending all this time with; I can tell already that I’ll probably have a sad couple weeks after we graduate and we all head our separate ways. At least at this point I’m used to it… every time you do military education it’s like this–you get super-close to certain friends, to the point of almost being emotionally dependent on them, and then it all just kind of goes away when the class ends. You write a few times and keep up with each other to some extent, but it all sort of fades away.
Actually, it’s quite a bit like it is when you make friends while you’re on deployment… they’re everything to you while you’re there, but when it’s over, it’s not something that you can resurrect in anything like the same form again. You have your own lives to return to; the things that keep you busy and occupied, the normal life things.
Hmmm. Hey, as a side note: my last paper came back and he mentioned that it was wordy! Wordy! Me?!? 
And that was while I was expressing myself with much greater than usual restraint…
Oh well. On I go to continue studying for a 50-question multiple choice test that we’re taking tomorrow morning… I never study this much for tests, and certainly not multiple-choice tests, but everyone else has me spun up about it so now I feel like I have to!
Posted by Kjirstin 
