Labor Day Weekend + Tuesday

It wasn't a very pleasant start for the Plebe Candidates' Labor Day weekend. It started way too early Friday morning right around 0415 so we could practice our parade for Acceptance Day. As we finished, we were notified that there was Regimental Rack-In until 0655, but I felt breakfast was more important than more sleep as I had a Physics test 4th period. The school day was a little different than normal, because we got to tour the T/V Kings Pointer for our Maritime Studies Class. Other than that it was mostly the same. Since we had our Regimental Period in the morning, our weekend officially started the beginning of 7th period, but it didn't really matter, as we still can't go anywhere.



Friday was relaxing for a little while, until we had to sign documents saying that we would live by the Academy's Honor Code of "A Midshipman will not Lie, Cheat, or Steal". We were originally supposed to go to the gym to do this, but once I was there, I found that there were only two others who were told the same. A little while later the rest of the company showed up after checking Ackerman Auditorium. After they showed up, we came to the conclusion that we needed to go to Wiley Hall, which is the old Chrysler mansion. We stood in line for a while before finally completing our task.



Once we finished with that, we had free time for the rest of the night. I went over to another old mansion, Land Hall, for the Asian-American Club. No, I'm not secretly Asian or anything; I was invited to join by the club president. It was just a time to hang out and order Chinese food if we wanted. The evening finished on a bittersweet note (as would Saturday and Sunday), because we had a muster in the gym at 2300 for Plebe Accountability.



Saturday started for us right around 0715, which was when we were told we needed our doors open, although we soon found out that we did not need to be up until 0745. After a quick gathering with the CTO, we were instructed to clean our rooms or our cleaning stations until the CTO told us we were done. Brunch followed cleaning, which was followed by a study hall in our rooms. Unfortunately, our study hall was abruptly ended by an announcement that we needed to practice our marching with rifles out on the football field. Nearly two hours of that caused many of us to become disgruntled because a few Plebe Candidates could not seem to remember some of the rifle movements that they were taught during Indoc.

We had free time until after dinner, when we formed up and marched over to the gym where we played dodgeball against Plebe Candidates from other companies. Even though we (First Co.) were labeled cheaters, we still had a lot of fun. Against CTO's orders, we failed to win the tournament, which mandated us to have our doors open at 0800 Sunday morning. Oh well, that worked out well for me as you'll see in a moment. Once we returned to the barracks, we had free time until bed.

It was a good thing that we had to be up at 0800, because that aided me in my decision to help Mom Guest set up for Bible Class as well as the curry dinner she was holding for the Plebe Candidates after the worship service. The curry dinner was outstanding. It was so great to have some non-Delano food that was homemade. After retiring to the barracks after about 8 hours at the chapel, we had free time until Mandatory Fun Night, aka movie night, where we saw Hoosiers. The rest of Sunday was fairly uninteresting as I and many others just sat in our rooms until we retired to our racks.

The start of Monday was not as smooth as either Saturday or Sunday, as some people decided that the 0730 doors open command was not to their liking, so they felt that sleeping past 0800 was a good idea. CTO was not fond of this idea at all, threatening that if anybody tested him for the rest of the day, all of our rooms would get tossed. Thankfully nobody did and our rooms stayed fairly good condition for the rest of the day. We had more marching practice in the afternoon, which thankfully did not take nearly as long as Saturday's. We concluded the day with a PKT, though I did not have to go since I had baseball practice. Baseball was pretty good. I doubt I'll make the team, but I'll give it a shot.

Tuesday wasn't too exciting. Classes went pretty smoothly. Evening held an information night about the EMT Class held during 2nd and 3rd trimesters, then went to practice for the Star Spangled Banner Brigade for about an hour and a half. The Star Spangled Banner Brigade consists of about 100 people holding state and U.S. flags marching into the gym with the band playing in front of all our parents on Friday night. It took longer than it should've, but hopefully it'll go smoother on Thursday.

I'm really hoping bed comes soon tonight. I have my first midterm tomorrow for my Maritime Studies class, which is actually a final for the Deck component of the class. On Thursday we switch over to learn about the Engine side. That should be pretty cool. Stand by for further posts...