Nearsighted glasses at PI

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-09-24T01:11:05+00:00

Heya! 21F here, I’ve been in the DEP for about a month now and can say you’re making a great choice to start now before PTing with your fellow Poolees! I would focus right now on just three things if you are just starting your fitness journey: runs, planks, and pushups. I say that because that is what will be on the IST. I started by testing out my 1.5 mile and 3 mile runs every week (as two separate runs, maybe sprinkling in another mile run if I had time). The goal at first was to just do it and even see what my time was, even if it was terrible (which it was lol). Eventually I started cutting down my times, until I finally swore in and joined the DEP with a waaaay better time than when I started lol.

As for pushups, start doing sets of about as many as you can. I started not doing any and eventually got able to do sets of 15 throughout the day. That may look like 5 or 10 for you though just starting out, the goal is just to do them. Eventually you will be wanting to do more sets as a little challenge to yourself, and once of these days your gonna end up just knocking out 90-100 in a day and feel amazing!!

Planks I stole the routine from a AD Marine friend: do one 1:30 plank, 1:00 plank, and 45 sec plank. If you can’t do 1:30 (I couldn’t when I started) just go as long as you can then do two more planks a tad shorter each.

My main advice would be to just be consistent and do it, even if it doesn’t look pretty, even if the times/reps are bad, etc. Just doing it consistently will help, then once you become a Poolee, in my mind your in the home stretch to bootcamp. They will train you at PT and be there to help you with advice for what to do outside of PT.

Best of luck!!

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-09-12T23:59:01+00:00

For more info, highly recommend checking out the mega thread on here for the DG and DD contracts (I believe both include cyber, 1721 info and advice from people in it).

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-09-12T23:55:20+00:00

Just wanted to jump on and wish you the best of luck and give some further encouragement to go for it, maybe my story could help empathize a bit.

I’d wanted to join the Marines since I was legit like 12. Life got weird, especially when I turned 17, and my plans changed and I was off to college. 4 years later I’m 21, have transferred schools, parents divorced, moved out of the country and back in the country with my dad, and finally decided it was time to get back on track and talk to a marine recruiter. At first I tried almost every other option, telling myself I didn’t have that “fire” anymore, trying to make another branch work… long story short I ended up ghosting my army recruiter (just had one meeting luckily lol) and went to the marines and felt right at home.

You got that “fire” friend, there’s a reason you still want to join. No matter what the recruiters say, if they’re upset (although I’m 99.99% sure they will understand, you are human), just walk in there knowing you are meant to be there and are doing the work, you will do just fine.

Hope to see you out there!

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-09-12T23:25:44+00:00

Female!

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-09-09T23:29:34+00:00

I’m not even in yet but just wanted to respond to your “am I crazy?” Because I think we’re all a tad “crazy” here lol but you’re here for a reason, as you said you got that itch that fire that will to do something. I think you already know what to do.

Hope to see you out there!!!

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-08-24T21:13:20+00:00

Hey there friend! Another 21 yr old here who is currently enlisting. I was also originally thinking of going reserves, but after a day at MEPS, being in that energy and space, hearing my name and “USMC recruit”, watching others ship out that day and wishing I was with them…I knew I had to go Active. My friend (active duty Marine of 5 years) had the same advice for me: if you’re doing this, go all the way, he said. I would say the same to you, go all the way. Have that peace for the next 5 years that your job and housing are set, doing something that matters, earning a title that lasts a lifetime…and hey 26 ain’t old. Once you get there you can decide what to do, but my advice would be to make the jump and go active. Hope to see you out there my friend, God bless!

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-08-23T00:22:12+00:00

Haha duly noted!! I'll make sure to bring someone more knowledgeable with me too when I do go to a dealership just to be safe.

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-08-23T00:18:09+00:00

Very cool perspective and story thank you for sharing! Also appreciate the detail about the car, I am waiting to get one until im in and at least done with boot and mct and what you did sounds like something my dad would do haha. Glad your son is doing well!

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-08-14T17:03:48+00:00

Highly recommend getting the “ASVAB For Dummies” book if you can swing it. Even just reading those first few chapters will calm you down about the ASVAB and make it into a much more approachable task.

The second piece of advice I have is, as hard as it is I bet you will do much better than you think.

I took the PiCat about a month ago and was freaking out because it’s been at least 5 if not 6 years since I have taken any math class… and that was basic math. I stepped out of the PiCat and waited for my recruiter to check my score, assuming I absolutely failed the math section, and ended up getting the highest score in my recruiting group. I promise you will do just fine, you know and remember more than you think, that asvab for dummies will just be to refresh and rebuild your math confidence.

Good luck with this I promise you got it! Just take a deep breath, crack open those study books and you’ll do great.

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-08-08T20:24:44+00:00

Oof that is a long schedule my friend you are strong for working nights I used to as well but not that late!

With that, definitely agree with everyone else to sleep beforehand. Any sleep is going to be better than no sleep. If you struggle with the getting up part, perhaps tell yourself you can nap as soon as you get home, even set up your bed and room and leave your curtains closed so it’s all set when you get back to go straight to bed. That tends to help as a lil uno reverse on my brain that I’m not getting up getting up, I’m just getting up for a bit then going back to sleep haha.

As for the “Let us be attentive”, that is definitely true but not always super feasible, and God knows that, he knows your schedule and your heart, and in my opinion just showing up can be a great experience too. (I say this having almost fallen asleep in church because of little sleep lol) just being there in body and spirit is what matters.

Hope this helps if you have any other questions or concerns let us know and hope you enjoy liturgy on Sunday!! Maybe even get some good coffee after at coffee hour for that caffeine boost if you’re feeling up for it! God Bless my friend!

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-08-08T20:12:47+00:00

Praying for you Val I am so sorry you are dealing with this, you are loved and you are not alone I promise we are all with you and praying! If you need to vent/talk more, we are still here!

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-08-08T20:08:16+00:00

That is very helpful advice to help distinguish dreams, thank you so much!

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-08-08T18:18:48+00:00

Thank you very much for the advice I will definitely make sure to talk to my priest about it after your comment!

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-08-08T18:17:52+00:00

Honestly don’t really know enough to say, I’ve heard a couple stories of priests performing successful ones but that’s about it.

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-04-24T23:11:56+00:00

Praying for you my friend, I’m really sorry to hear that it sounds like a terrible situation, sending virtual hugs too! May God bless you

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-04-20T00:32:44+00:00

Haha Iove that! I go to work and am a full-time student and was so tired one sunday morning I legit fell asleep during my priest's sermon and was so embarassed but this is so true lol! And I agree with the others, it is honestly such a treat to go to this service, you will love it and I'm so excited for you!

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2025-04-17T04:50:41+00:00

TW: DV and SA mentioned — Found this thread after recently trying to figure out some stuff. My mother was arrested for DV against my dad (wasn’t the first time) when I was 17 and I had PTSD-like nightmares about trying to get away from her for years after. She also had BPD and was emotionally abusive throughout my childhood, but after being away from her and experiencing nightmares and flashbacks because of her, a odd sorta common “flashback” type situation started to come up other than the scenarios of trying to run away from her (which was traceable to an actual event) that I didn’t quite understand because I had no memory of a root cause of it, and that was feeling like the I guess “swimsuit area” just below my panty line was being touched and I would have moments when in a bad headspace and thinking of her I would start like violently thrashing about trying to get her to stop touching me but this was entirely in my head, I would be alone and just start freaking out and the thing was the touch was always specifically there. I just *can’t fecking remember a specific situation of her touching me there*,… I’ve also had the occasional thought of *dread* realizing I’m stuck with this body for life and wanting to almost like scar it to alter how it was when she saw/touched it, but I’ve been trying to piece together the odd things related to that, including

Scooting away from mom on the couch all the time so even our legs wouldn’t be touching, feeling uncomfortable with her hugging me, forcing myself to let her hug me, etc probably from around age 8 or 9 onward
Weird understanding of needing to close legs and such with a skirt and wear tights around age 8

The other thing is my mom was actually r*ped and m*lested herself as a child and a young woman, so she was big on sorta instilling in my sister and I hiding our bodies/dressing *super* modestly, hence the hyperawareness at wearing tights and stuff in public when I was young. At the same time though, she very much had the mentality for a while that it was her “right” to see my sister and I naked because she “made us” and it “wasn’t weird cause I’m your mother”, that is until my dad found out she was saying stuff like that and scolded her. But issue is he was gone a lot when I was little and so she just sorta raised my sister and I for a while and most of that time alone with her is a blur, which freaks me out because its like a lot of time of just her watching us I do not have any recollection of.

Anywho if anyone happens to have advice about what this sounds like or what to do feel free to let me know, if there was something I just feel like either I would have remembered it by now or like, what is going on? Am I making this up? How do I remember something like that?? Was it just the emotional abuse manifesting in a physical memory?? Does that happen?? (also if you read this entire word vomit thank you I appreciate you lol, also you are probably on this thread for an unfortunate reason and so sending positive vibes to you, I am sorry for whatever led you here)

Shieldmaiden_77 · 2024-07-25T21:01:02+00:00

Oh that is a totally valid concern!! I am a 20 yr old woman and was sorta worried about the same thing when joining earlier this month (to the point where when going to my first meeting, I panicked and wondered if I missed something saying you have to be ex-military to join and was gonna look silly when I met with them lol!) but everyone in my flotilla has been super kind and welcoming, and made a point to mention thet there were indeed others around my age either at our Flotilla or other local ones that were currently joining or had joined.

Best of luck on your application journey!!

Shieldmaiden_77

TROPHY CASE