Aux's

The first three days of class on the Fathometer have gone by. The first day wasn't much because it was interrupted by a "Captain's Call" or something, where all the staff members had to go hear him speak a few words about something. But on Thursday we started off with a short lab (in the classroom), doing a check on the equipment. Baldwin and I were the first to go, and after that, I spent a lot of time reading Battleship Sailor as other groups did it. Today we finished up the labs (some folks had their PRT yesterday) and then went through the Tech Pub... a super-wide (landscape-printed) technical manual solely for the Fatho, bound together by 7 or 8 clip rings. It's similar to the Tech Doc, but I think it's much better organized. And they lied to us... we will be having tests... they just don't mean much because there is no mandatory extra study. Only a 75% is required to pass.

Speaking of percentages, yesterday we were given a final class ranking from Maintenance. I did indeed stay at third place, only under one percent from second with a final of a 97.22%.

And two more folks have been given orders this week: first Fierro on Wednesday... he is starting out in San Diego on a destroyer, but within a month it is being reassigned to Everett (San Diego was his first pick, Everett was not on his list). And today Baldwin got orders for a destroyer in Pearl Harbor, his third pick. So the rest of us (6 of 11) went down to the student resource center (SRC) to check for orders to no avail. Also looked at my PRT scores... this cycle I scored an EXCELLENT. Last cycle it was a GOOD, although my run time was almost precisely the same. It was my pushups that improved. My first two PRTs were both OUTSTANDING. Must bring it back up!

On Wednesday I decided I ought to go ahead and get a new pair of boots and dress shoes and dress white trousers. My boot camp boots are worn, cracked at the ball of the foot on each and dinged up so much... I started working on shining the new ones and the difference is remarkable. I was amazed how much better of a shine I got in five minutes on my new pair than I did for the first few months on my old ones. Amazing what practice can do! The old dress shoes were really the catalyst for the spree. Since my foot fell asleep on watch last time, I realized I needed a roomier pair. This time I got Men's 9 E, and I think that'll do the trick; they're much roomier and lighter too.

On Thursday I got my new dress white trousers fitted for hemming; I'll pick them up Monday. These were much needed because my boot camp pair were hemmed too short... and had become a little too tight. And I hear we might have to wear them for our graduation 22 MAY.