A rose looks grey at midnight, but the flame is just asleep. And steel is strong because it knows the hammer and white heat. - Johnny Cash, These Thin

I've been in a horrible mood this week. I think it all started on our "dinner and a movie wednesday". We had it on Wednesday instead of Thursday, because as I said in the video, I was Officer of the Day on Thurs.

So, at our little group meet up on Wednesday, one of my friends informed me that most likely we will have to stay an extra month before we can leave. Right now the next detachment's wave 1 is set to leave and then the 2nd wave isn't set to leave until a month later. They want them to be 2 weeks apart for a smooth turnover. Therefore, they are going to push back the departure date of wave 1, so that means we will have to stay. Good and bad from this. Good...extra money and extra time with my friends here. Bad...I am already starting to think about wanting to go home and we're only 2 months into this.

Needless to say, that talk put a damper on the 4 of us that night.

The good part about that night was that we all went to play video games and Joe and I played NCAA football! I, of course, picked tech....and sucked it up because I have no idea what I'm doing when I play it. I did go up to the community center today (because the internet was sucking it up bigtime) and played some for practice.

Then, Thursday my routine was all screwed up because of OOD. I had to get up and muster at 0645 both days and then try and sleep and then either work or stand watch. I missed getting to work out those days.

We work with the same people every day. We live with the same people. We just have our own little quirks and things that bug each other. It's interesting.

Right now, it's 3am here in Kuwait. I've stayed up to listen to the first Texas Tech game! I bought a thing on their website to listen to red raider radio. They had a commercial playing that had the fight song and I started crying. I miss tech so much. I miss college. I just miss the US right now. I get to have fun playing as Tech's team on NCAA football on xbox. haha.

One thing that has saved me from being over here. Skype. I've been going into the laundry room so I can actually use my mic instead of typing. It's really cheered me up on my low days.

I was reading some messages that I sent back in Sept of 05 and it was talking about the hurricane that hit Texas after Katrina and how my sister didn't want to leave. Well, it looks like the same thing is happening now. That cat 4 hurricane is on it's way to the gulf coast somewhere and will get bigger before it hits. Scary stuff. I hope people all take precautions. I'll be watching this...

Servants to mother machine, nursed by video screens, paradise of insanity, born into a grave of mental slavery. - Kreator, Mental Slavery

I was flying back from Lubbock and I saw Jesus on the plane, or maybe it was Elvis. You know, they kind of look the same. - Don Henley, If Dirt Were D

I was looking up videos of Lubbock and it struck me. You can't find any other city with such diverse weather complexities! Here are some examples:

Hail


Wind/Duststorms


Lightening (not a great video...but still)


Tumbleweeds (reminds me of one instance where I was driving and there were hundreds flying across the street! Ignore the crazy hick yelling in the camera. hahaha)




I really miss Lubbock! Everyone says you'll never miss it once you leave....but I really do. I'm actually toying with the idea of retiring out there. Here's a good video after you've seen all that destruction. haha



I didn't really know much about Texas Tech or Lubbock before I graduated from high school, but it's like the 4 years that I were there....it took a piece of my soul. I won't be the same until I can get back there. I need to soon. My last weekend there was February of 07 and it was a good weekend, but just bad memories as to why I was headed there. I need to replace it with a good trip back to the HUB city when I get back from this desert.

Even though I wander, I'm keeping you in sight. You're a candle in the window, on a cold dark winters night. - Reo Speedwagon, Can't Fight This Feelin

I have some of the best friends back home a girl could wish for!

Jim and Kristi are always there sending me letters on fun paper, cards, packages, playing on skype with me, etc....I can't believe how much I treasure their friendship and they sacrifice so much to make sure we stay close while I'm far. I always get cheered up when I talk to them. They compliment me when I'm feeling self conscious. They tell me wonderful stories to keep me entertained. I can't imagine life without them.

Tanya sent me a package the other day too! Tons of magazines, bath and body works and candy and NUTELLA! I miss being back in DC with her and Phil and Jessica! I know she misses me too and that she has a ton of stuff to do planning her wedding and all...But soon, I'll be back and we can go snowboarding! I'm worried because I don't have much more time in DC and then I don't know how far we'll be separated. But, I do know that we will cross paths again. Maybe down the road I'll try to be stationed in Jacksonville and she'll be living there!

Courtney has gotten on facebook chat and talked with me a bit when I was on that. That was always fun.

My girls from my small group always send out updates every week. Mine is on thursdays...Oh poo. I forgot to send mine out on Thursday. I have to go do that....

My parents are amazing and send me packages all the time. I didn't think I would need all this stuff I keep asking for, but I miss having this stuff at my fingertips. They get on skype and play a lot and put patton up to the camera.

There are a few others that get on skype and play. That really is so much fun and I'm hoping some of my other friends back home would get on.

I'm trying to write more and I have a few cards to send out tomorrow. Some of my friends though, I'm surprised, I haven't really heard much from. That's kinda saddening. I fear there is growth growing there, and honestly, it's hard not to get easily upset by all that. It's just good to even know they're trying. I am so blessed and I'm going to thank God extra tonight for just the wonderful people in my life!

Especially, the new ones he's brought into my life here. We're family. Just like my Tech family. My Arlington High family. The internet family I gain through connections like Tess!

We're all connected and it's just hitting me right now. Thank you all for being so supportive of everything I do and listening to me when I'm complaining or being a silly girl or whatever.

Be good, and you will be lonesome, be lonesome and you will be free. Live a lie and you will live to regret it, that's what living is to me. -Buffett

Hmm. A lot is going on here. My mind is wandering to many different things. They're not bad. I'm doing really well. I'm learning so much here it seems.

I'm learning about being a nurse. We have many different types of patients here. I'm just seeing different ways of being a nurse. I'm also having the opportunity (at times my only option) to teach a lot of my corpsmen. Some of them were pulled from desk jobs and they are now on a floor and when we get busy, I rely on them a lot. The only problem is....they don't always know what it is I'm asking them to do, so then I have to stop and teach them, which takes even longer. I enjoy this, don't get me wrong. I've just been spoiled to having corpsmen that have been on the floor a while.

I'm learning about being an officer. There are situations that arise that I've never had to deal with back at Bethesda. At first, I was getting really upset because the politics are worse here, which I never could imagine. But, now I'm realizing that it really is showing me important things I will need to know. Something I'm going through right now is kinda strange and hard, but I am seeing how the process works and having to make choices that are good for my shipmates and Navy. It may be tough to make those decisions, but I know they have to be done.

I'm learning about monotony. Pfew....every day same thing. Wake up. Work out. Eat. Work. Home. Ready for bed. Maybe movie or call or internet.

I'm trying to keep my self confidence that I've always had.....but....I feel like people pick apart how you look here. I don't understand it. When I was talking about rugby one day, I had a corpsman ask me if that's how I broke my nose. I stopped writing and told him that I never broke my nose. He felt like a jerk. Then, I had another one ask me if I was ever a big (meaning fat) kid before. I said no and asked why and he said because I had chubby cheeks.

Mind you, these are both things that I have been very self conscious of in the past and there really isn't anything I can do about it so I just let it go and don't let it bother me...but it just seems weird that these things come up here. I feel like I'm in high school or something around some of these guys.

Then, other little things that people will ask about the way I walk or anything...I now get defensive. What do they want?? Do I ask everyone else about their looks? No. Whatever. I'm kinda using that frustration though to help me work out more. I'm starting to tone down. I'm liking that. It's hard to control the diet here though! There is all this free food at the DFAC and always desert around the hospital.....urg! If I could just stop that part I'd be super skinny...but NO! haha.

This is such an interesting experience. I didn't know what to expect. I am really enjoying my time here though and I know it will go fast. I'm excited about the holidays here. I think it will be a lot of fun! I know other people will be missing their husbands/wives/kids/girlfriends/boyfriends, etc...but I don't have all that, so I'm gonna have a good time being here with friends.

We're surrounded by the comfort and protection of the highest power. - Savage Garden, Truly Madly Deeply

'Comfort' is on standby for Georgia aid

Hospital ship stays in Baltimore for now

By David Wood |Sun reporter

August 15, 2008

WASHINGTON - With a $20 million, 24-nation aid effort under way for victims of the fighting in Georgia, the USNS Comfort, Baltimore's familiar white-hulled hospital ship, remains idle at its Canton pier, though on standby for possible deployment to the region.

The Pentagon sent a military team into war-ravaged Georgia yesterday to determine what supplies are needed and the most effective ways to deliver them. Two Air Force C-17 cargo planes have already carried basic loads of shelter, food and clothing.

The Comfort, with its 12 operating rooms and fully staffed 1,000-bed hospital, could provide badly needed medical services. The ship is also capable of producing large quantities of fresh water.

But Lt. Cmdr. Steven Pigman, an administrative officer on board the Comfort, said it would take five days to get under way. Most of that time is required to load food and medical stores and assemble its medical and support staff of 1,000 to 1,200 people.

At the ship's cruising speed of 17.5 knots, it would take just over two weeks to travel the 5,840 nautical miles from Baltimore to Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti.

There are other options.

The Pentagon is prepared to airlift mobile field hospitals to Georgia, which would be quicker than sending the Comfort, and the units could be deployed in rural parts of the country if needed, officials said. The Defense Department also has access to mobile water purification units that could be airlifted as well.

International aid officials have described a confusing situation in Georgia, with units of Russian troops roaming outside the contested enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and militias in unmarked uniforms on the streets. Russian troops invaded Aug. 7 after an escalating confrontation over the two disputed regions.

The United Nations refugee agency said one of its assessment teams was attacked yesterday by a paramilitary group, which hijacked their vehicle at gunpoint. The vehicle was later recovered and the U.N. officials were unhurt.

The Pentagon's operations in Georgia could put U.S. military personnel directly in contact with Russian forces. The teams will be authorized to act in self-defense but will not be "confrontational," officials said.

"I don't see any prospect for the use of military force by the United States in this situation," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters.

Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Pentagon has had "very good cooperation and dialogue" with Russians as it coordinated its incoming C-17 flights and arranged for an assessment team to work in Georgia.

The U.N., which is supervising the international relief effort, estimated that 115,000 people have fled the fighting over the past week. Aid agency officials said many have taken refuge in kindergartens and other public buildings where food, water, medicine and toilets are in short supply.


I know a ton of nurses that might be going on the comfort making things very tough on Bethesda! Our floor alone sent someone to Africa, one here (me), 2 to Cuba, and now 2 on the comfort possibly. We were already short staffed. Yikes. I hope they're all doing okay.

I also had a Brit as a patient the other day and he had an open fracture (meaning the bone was sticking through the skin) and he doesn't even flinch in pain. He stated it was a 2 out of a scale of 0-10!
Most American men will say their pain is an 8 out of 10 and request dilaudid for small infections!
They also don't have the cool accent, but that's besides the point. ;)

If you believe in working hard all day, just step in my shoes and take my pay. - ZZ Top, Just Got Paid

There's more on my facebook album
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2258279&l=cd0ac&id=16706036



Today, I put 2 years of being an ensignling behind me!

I am now a Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTjg)!!

I was forced into doing a promotion ceremony, but I'm really glad I did. It was actually a ton of fun. Even with it being a black flag day and wind kicking up tons of sand and knocking all the O's covers off!

CDR Pruett-Baer administered my oath. She's from Bethesda with me also. LTjg Weiss helped "pin on my rank". It was actually really great to have my friends that I've made so far be there.

I could do my oath anywhere, so I wanted to be out on the helo pad where it says "Welcome to EMF Kuwait" on cement blocks! It was really hot and sweaty, but pretty freakin awesome.

Then, we all went inside and had ice cream cake! That was the best part! Well, that....and the pay raise I'll get on next month's paycheck! Woooo hooooo!

I got my last pictures with "Chuck Norris" and had to give him up so they can pass him down to the next senior Ensign. It's nice not having him attached to my hip anymore. I'm back to my normal size. haha.

As much as this place can be freaking ridiculous (with all the freaking memos and routing sheets I have to do every day...which I might add I never had to do at Bethesda...and I thought they were up tight....), I think I'll actually end up liking this place. I have a feeling I'm really going to miss everyone here a ton.

I don't have a family to go back to. I know we all see each other as family since we're away from loved ones, but really....I don't have much to go back to in Bethesda. My close friends here really are my family. They mean a lot to me and it's going to be a fast (now) 5 months with them.

Here's to being a LTjg!

My room is comfortably small with rubber lining walls, and there's always someone calling my name. - They Might Be Giants, Absolutely Bill's Mood

This is my "room" in the I building. There are all the female officers in one bay and we all have curtains and whatnot up so it looks like a homeless shelter. But, inside my little "room", I feel like I'm at home. It's really cute, I think...and it reminds me of being in a dorm back in college!

Ah college.

You know what else you can have in college? Beer. Ya, I miss beer.

Um, what else. Still been working out with that P90X thing. It's still kicking my butt, but it's working I think. I seem to be more toned and my shirt sleeves are fitting tighter.

It was Joe's bday the other night so we got him an ice cream cake! It was delicious! It was crazy though, because it was almost completely melted by the time we got back to put the rest in the freezer. haha.

After all that crap I ate the other night, we have a weigh in today. haha. Nice. We don't do our PRT's on deployment (unlike the silly army... which is why all of them come in the ER to get excuses to get out of it... but anyway...) but we do have to get weighed. I'm not worried, but it's just a pain in the butt to have to do that before work now and change and all that.

Things are trucking alone just fine now. It's been about a month since we got here! Crazy huh? Only 5 more to go!

She looks uptown, but she ain't really. She's into football, she likes my chili. - John Anderson, Somebody Slap Me

DUH DUH!

GO

DUH DUH DUHHHHH!

FIGHT

DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH. DUH. DUH. DUH. DUHHHHHH!

WINNNN!

Who's ready for Texas Tech football?????

Check this out: http://www.texastech.edu/development/stadium/video/?utm_source=direct_mail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=stadium-announcement

I have been waiting for them to fix the east side of the stadium. This is too awesome. Hopefully, by the time I ever get back to Tech (probably in 4 years...) it will be fixed!

Oh man. Jim sent me a tech football t-shirt and I wore it around Camp Arifjan yesterday. I had about 3 people stop and talk to me about Tech and Lubbock. A couple of them were from Lubbock. Oh, I miss it.

I miss it badly.
:(

You walk into the room like a camel and then put your eyes in your pockets and your nose on the ground. - Bob Dylan, Ballad Of A Thin Man

Here's Chuch Norris the camel. I just call him Chuck. He's attached to me pretty much wherever I go. There is a tradition of the "bull ensign" in the Navy. It's the most senior ensign. They are in charge of making sure all the other little ensignlings behave and they have to carry a bull around.

In this case, a camel. Now, it's everyone else's job to steal him from me. I have heard of him going up the flagpole, on a medevac to Iraq and back, and a large chase around the hospital that ended with someone jumping over a computer desk and knocking over the monitor.

So far, I've been okay. Some of my corpsmen are really good at getting the caribeaner off of me. They haven't gotten him yet. I will miss the little guy when I have to give him up a week from today when I pick up LTjg!!! Then, I think ENS Upton will have him for a while. It's kinda a neat tradition and all the army folks have to ask and they think it's pretty fun.

I had an army EOD guy talk to me yesterday about how much he loves the navy. He was saying that the army doesn't really look out for you and they just tell you to suck it up and don't give a rat's about you. I don't know. That's just what I hear from a LOT of army guys. I asked him what the difference was and he said one word... hospitality.

That makes me happy. I'm glad that so many people benefit from Navy medicine. That's why I don't understand when people dog on military medicine. The docs take wayyyy more time to make sure you're okay than any other civilian doc I've been to.

A moment's only temporary. Let too many go, and you will be history too. - The Juliana Theory, Something Isn't Right Here

Sorry for the last post. I was having a very dark day here. The thing that I figured out...and this is a key to life overall, is that you HAVE to force yourself to see the good in situations.

I wanted to deploy for a reason. I wanted to be a part of something bigger. Help the guys that are living in crappy conditions and putting their life on the line every second of every day to try and keep us safe in the states.

Well, I got here and it didn't seem like the big thing I was expecting. I don't know what I expected, but it just doesn't seem like it. I was letting myself get frustrated, pissed, tired, for no reason.

I went to chapel yesterday. I needed it. Refocus on the purpose of me being here. Remind myself that I get to learn a lot here and I can have fun doing it if I just remind myself of this.

Back in January I got back into church and really found my way back to God. What I felt was insane. I haven't felt that in years! Well, it was great for a few months and then with me getting ready for the deployment and everything that was rushing by...I just let it go. Now, I remember what I am missing and I want to get back to that place.

Sunday, I prayed that I could keep my head in the game. Keep a positive attitude. See the good that is coming of all this. I also prayed for Him to let me come back to Him and feel that way again. It was a good service. It was a good day.

The hospital was slow. I watched some videos on the computer with one of my patients. He's a retired Major who fought in Vietnam and is now working as a contractor over here. Pretty interesting guy.

We're in August! Next month I contact the detailer again about where I want to go for my next duty station. Still thinking Guam. I also found out that it's a 3 year tour now. That's good! Then, grad school in Houston. :)

Then, October is Halloween fun. November, we're planning our R&R in Qatar! The crew and I are all trying to go together! We get a few beers there too! yay! Then, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and I come home!

Not too shabby.

I worked out my chest, arms, and back today so I can barely type anymore. haha. Off to clean up and get to work.

Nighttime to some, a brief interlude. To others, the fear of solitude. - The Moody Blues, The Day Begins

I'm either up and ready to go or all I want to do is hide in my rack, listen to deathcab for cutie, and sleep.

I don't know what's up. I feel like I'm going through mood swings here. Work really isn't bad overall, but I feel like that's all I do. Nursing is a job that takes a lot out of you. Mostly, just sacrificing of yourself and serving on others. It's very tiring. Trying to stop people from being in pain is a tough job.

Someone is always in pain.

Someone is always nauseated.

Someone is always getting hurt.

It never ends.

The ER docs from the last det are burnt out, bitter, and need to leave. They're rude to patients, nurses, corpsmen. I have never had a navy doc that I hate to work for except two here in particular. They act like everyone else is totally incompetent. And, they'll be watching us in the mass casualty drill tomorrow. Splendid. After that, I go to work for the rest of the day and night.

I took a friend's ambien so I can sleep tonight. That's all I really want to do right now. My mind wanders to people, events, and times in my life that it really shouldn't here. I was using this deployment to escape all that, but the funny thing is....I think about it more over here.

Joke's on me.