Wait and Hurry Up!

Those who have dealt with the military know that they are big fans of 'hurry up and wait.' In a rather unusual turn of events, however, I find myself in a "wait and hurry up" situation. This has been on my mind for the past couple weeks, but not to this extent. My time here in San Diego is numbered down to two hands and a foot. That's not the problem. The problem lies in what I will need to do in the last few days before my transit. Let's start off with what I've known about. These next two weeks, I start yet more schools (3 this time). Word around the campfire is that these schools aren't that bad, so I'm not too worried about them. Also, at least during the first week, I will being staying after class to study for my advancement exam. That's the second thing that I've known about - 3rd Class Petty Officer Exam, September 21st. This, my friends, is still the wait part. The 'x' factor, so to speak, became painfully clear yesterday when I recieved my flight itinerary. From the looks of it, the day after I take my advancement exam and the day of graduating my last class is also the day I catch a red-eye to Maine.

You might be thinking that this doesn't sound all that bad and on the surface it isn't. Handling these three things separately is cake. Handling two at a time isn't bad. Combining all three is gonna be a pain in the ass for one reason. You can never rely on the navy. This, actually, is a good time for me to throw in a good 'for instance' concerning my advancement exam. I was given an astoundingly great opportunity to help a shipmate check into the command. This excellent opportunity allowed me to follow someone around telling him where to go and what he needs to do. It's even better when this person out ranks you and doesn't like taking your suggestions making you look like a complete jackass in front of other people who out rank you. It's a pleasure, I tell you. Anyway, such an opportunity was truly a blessing in disguise. If not for said check-in, I would not have found out that somewhere along the line the ESO (the office that runs the advancement exams) did not get my worksheet, thus no test for parm on 21 SEP. Yes, the navy is very reliable. So, with all three things occurring so close to each other significantly increases the probability of something going wrong, which, in turn, makes my day all the better. Not to mention the fact that I have to run around and check-out. Oh yes, we need not to forget about the packing and the worry of things not fitting. Needless to say, my stress level will consistently begin to compound over the next couple of weeks and the worse of it is that there is nothing I can do about it right now, but wait.

Heaven to me right now would be accelerating to the triple digits and ascending to 35,000 feet.

By the way, when I do post things in the future, I'll try not to bitch so much...