At first it was rather confusing but still fun. The Academy is right at the foot of the mountains so there is almost always a bit of wind coming off of them. The air was so thin my head was spinning for the first day or so. Drinking water was a huge thing up there. There were signs on the bathroom stall doors saying 'if your urine is this color drink more water' or even funnier was the one that said 'if it(urine) is dark brown or red report ASAP to the clinic.' yeah like we needed that little tidbit. The people were definitely cool. It was amazing to be in a group of smart people that *gasp* were at least somewhat like me!!!!!! The mile run the second day killed me.
We had to do a sort of fitness test the second day. Normally I do fine on those. But the elevation where we were was about.... 7,708 feet above sea level.... yeaaaaaaaaah. Florida.. try 0 feet above sea level. It took me ten minutes to do it and after that I felt so horrible. My right calf kept seizing up and my knee felt kind of odd. I couldn't get my breath back. Then I couldn't do a pull up or hold for the full 30 seconds. I only managed to do thirty push and sit ups in the two minutes for each and throw the basketball from my knees for about 30 feet. The shuttle run took my ten seconds and I fell the second time I did it too. So the second day wasn't that bad. The classes were so much fun! I got to build two circuit boards for games and it was really cool. The food was also surprisingly good.
The third day was awful. We had to wake up at five thirty after going to bed at 11 the night before... mostly because we were playing cards... My element was the best. It was a pretty cool group of kinds. We had to get up so early so we could do PT. Three sets of twenty push ups, twenty sit ups, twenty squats. Two sets of ten diamond push ups and two sets of twenty squats. Then something called pyramid push ups. It basically one push up then you roll over and sit up and push up to the sky, then roll over an do two push ups then roll back over to push the air up two times. You do this until you reach eight.... then go back down. They are the most evil things in the world. Try it. I dare you. Then we had to run for half a mile. I fell down towards the end because my calf was pulling so much. I did sit out of the intermurals so it helped a little... well until the A Flight (mine) versus B Flight dodgeball contest started... I couldn't help but play then. And of course we won. Yeah and I got to take a field biology class and play with codes!!! And now my computer is encrypted. It's amazing!
The fourth day was much of the same only PT that morning was soooo much worse. I couldn't even start to run. My element leader saw me limping and sent me to sit out. I felt so bad... Especially since she wanted me to try at least... So I kind of limped through the day. It was cool since my two classes were intro to airmanship and Aerospace Physiology. So it was a pretty good day even if I felt a little crummy. Oh and we Beat C flight in dodgeball!!! Even our Cadre beat the C flight Cadre. >////< So A flight is now the dodgeball champs. ^^
The fifth day was called doolie for a day. It was a sugar coated version of what the freshman year is like there. They pounded on our doors at five oh five in the morning and we had to be ready in two minutes. PT that morning lasted two hours. Someone counted and in just that alone we did 200+ push ups. It was awful. Then we had to take like two minute showers and march to breakfast. We couldn't talk at all except for seven basic response and two days before they had given us a list of stuff to memorize. If we got it wrong they dropped the group for more push ups. Again, awful. During breakfast we couldn't look up from the plate and to eat we had to take a bite, set the fork down, then start chewing after our hands were back in out laps. We had to sit at attention the entire time as well. Then we had the element challenge. At the end of that we had to run for another mile... Up hill the last half. I almost couldn't do it. I was surprised that I finished and that my Cadre and Team weren't fed up with me. I still felt awful about... at that point I was sure I wouldn't be able to make it through basic. It was better that night, we 'graduated' from the seminar. But before that we had to practice drills and the static movements. We had a bearing contest that was amazing. These guy's faces were so close they were almost kissing... O_O yeah then later we had to stand at attention for at least 30 minutes. I found out that unless I get my feet and my other knee fixed I wouldn't be able to take basic training. It would just hurt too much for me to do it. Well then that night we had the gallon challenge. You had to down a gallon of milk in the least time. Oh my god.... the puke.... was amazing! All the guys were amazing.... it was morbidly fascinating.
Then... we went to sleep... and left. It feels odd now... it was amazing how close you got to eight complete strangers just because they didn't get mad about you being so weak or just because you went through the same s**t. It... was pretty cool.
So final tally? Several stiff and sore muscles. Wonderfully purple and scraped knees from crawling in the grass. Scraped hips and elbows from the same thing, badly chapped lips (the chapstick didn't help much), bone sore feet and a new understanding of boot camp.
I want to go back...
 Higure Ryu · Fri Jun 13, 2008 @ 09:50pm · 0 Comments |
