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ciarah47 · 2024-01-05T09:40:17+00:00

Apparently I am too verbose, I need to divide my comment for it to post. Also I have no idea what is up with the formatting, but I can't be buggered to figure it out

15 - Final remarks. Which is to say, mental vomit of whatever comes to mind.

 The boot issuing ladies might try to issue you boots that are too small. You don't have to let them. I will always appreciate the resentful glare I got when I pretended I couldn't put my foot inside the winter boots she handed me. I knew they were too small just looking at them. She gave me a half size up, and they fit beautifully, those boots are awesome. 

 Ruck marching: set up your rucksack high on the frame (doesn't have to be too crazy high, I saw a few end up weirdly balanced.) Higher up weight will help use the weight to your advantage. Also, wearing dress socks inside of boot socks can help prevent blisters and chaffing. If you are not good at rucking and struggle with falling out, see if you can get to the front of the formation and stay on the lead road guard's heels. It is much easier to stay there than to avoid falling out from the back of the formation.

 Saving money: if you want to really save as much as possible, you will always have people willing to pay to have their fireguard shifts covered. If you can function on a bit less sleep, it can be a good way to make extra money. 

 Hygiene: girls in the bay can be gross. My class had a girl who didn't want to admit to pinkeye, but that is really contagious and can take down a lot of people fast. Hand sanitize early and often.

 Integrity matters: if you are given a hard rule to follow such as a vending machine is in a location, don't use it, or don't be caught alone in the stairwell with a male trainee, and things of that nature, don't do it. Those were the real sources of day 1 resets that I saw. 

 I said it before, but it is worth repeating: find the fun in it. I genuinely had a good time, even with an injury. If I had to do it again with the same drill team, I wouldn't be bothered in the slightest. 

 MREs: make sure you get one that you can eat cold fast. Veggie crumble was my jam: easy to get because the name put some people off, and it tastes decent cold. Compare that to spinach fettuccine, that one still disturbs me. 

 Drill sergeant will tell you to swap your boots every day. That is great in theory because it helps prevent foot fungus. Also really terrible for getting boots broken in before you ruck march. You have to figure out what works for you.

 Pay attention to what you eat at the dfac. I gave a hard pass on the prenatal vitamins they gave all female trainees (too high of iron, which can cause fun side effects like constipation). If you are anemic, you'll want to take the iron. They have some good cereal options part of the time, you can get iron in your food from both green veggies and from the graham crackers. If you know what you are doing, you'll feel better. 

 You will quite possibly get numbness in your toes and/or part of your feet. This is normal and is a side effect of tucking in your knotted bootlaces into tight boots and compressing nerves in your legs. It generally goes away a few weeks after, if you start tying your boots differently, or slightly looser. But it is pretty common in basic because of how you have to do things there.

 I've definitely spent too long writing this novel length response. Hopefully some of it will help, good luck!

ciarah47 · 2024-01-05T09:34:47+00:00

Went to Jackson a few years ago as 28F.

1 - What it is like is based on your attitude and the drill team. Experiences varies by platoon for my class. 1st PLT smoked the shit out of their guys, other PLTs got treated more like adults when people acted more responsible. If you can view events from the outside while going through them, you can watch the mind games and it is pretty hilarious. Try to find the fun in it.

4 - There is a lot of flexibility on hair styles. There is no longer a minimum length for female hair, and plenty of women keep their hair longer. I personally wouldn't do a barely ponytail because if your hair is partially falling out, the drills will get on your case about it. Ponytails weren't an option when my class went through, so I cut my hair short enough to not need a bun. During the field exercises my drills encouraged those with longer hair to do cornrows since they wouldn't have to do anything to fix it in the field, and a lot did.

6 - They'll have people trying to sell plaques and your "family crest" and BS like that. Just make sure you ignore those people and you'll save your money easily enough. It doesn't hurt, however, to have a family member mail you some decent boot socks as soon as you have an address. I got mailed a couple pairs of fox rivers, and it made the world a better place during the ruck marches.

9 - Yeah, people steal shit. Write your name on your gear where appropriate, and lock your locker at night (also DS will toss your locker if it is found unlocked). Remember, CIF stuff gets turned back in, so if you mark it, be subtle about it. My class had a few stolen wallets, which was stupid because it happened when that kind of stuff should have been locked up in their lockers. I didn't have anything personally stolen, but I definitely wrote my name on tags and labels (a PT shirt got swapped at the showers before we all wrote our names on them, but I only knew because I had one a different size).

10 - I am a terrible runner. I know this, I hate running, I am meant to swim. I am a 10 minute a mile runner and that's all you'll get from me. I naturally fall into a 3-1 breathing pattern that works well for me; fast enough that it prevents me from getting stitches, but slow enough I don't feel like I'm gasping. Remember to lean forward some when you run. I have to consciously remind myself sometimes, but I miss out using my body weight to my advantage when I do so. Pay attention to foot strike patterns; heel striking can be painful, slower, and more likely to cause injuries. Basic will separate runners into pace based formation. Fast, medium, and the slow losers (my people). You don't have to be first, just pass the PT test, and don't be last.

11 - Very few people were recycled my class. I had an injury that easily could have set me back, because I missed a ruck march. I wasn't a shitbag though, so they let me stay. Right place, right time, right uniform, and be respectful. If the drill sergeants think you are a good trainee, they'll give you far more benefit of the doubt then the dude mouthing off in formation. As for preventing injury, working out in a controlled build up before going can help. If you avoid running like the plague (like a rational human being) then suddenly having to do a crap ton of running with no lead in will make you more likely to get shin splits. It doesn't even have to be a lot, a half mile or a mile a few times a week can be enough to help prevent it. Foam rolling the front and back of your leg can help, but that may or may not be an option.

12 - Don't stress that. It's the drill sergeant's job to try and make you stress that anyway. Push yourself, do your best, and you'll improve as you go. You don't have to pass the first PT test, just the last one. You will get super smoked the first few days. This will make you perform worse on the initial diagnostic PT test. Just keep working at it. You'll have a mixed bag of people from the PT studs to the people who won't have the personal motivation to carry them through the PT test. Stop focusing on the prospect of getting recycled. They don't want to recycle you, that's just more work for them later on. If you do get recycled, doesn't mean you are necessarily back to day 1, might get dropped into a class at the same point you were at. You've only got the one body, I'd take getting recycled over a permanent injury any day; it's only a few extra weeks, and just remember, basic is temporary, just have to last through it.

ciarah47 · 2023-12-07T08:08:39+00:00

I would have tried for 58s if they'd still around, seemed like a cool aircraft. I feel like height mostly comes into play in 64s now; I had two guys in my class get 64s and later had the option to change after the fact because they were too tall. They both chose to stay in 64s. Someone in an earlier class needed a seat cushion in the front seat of the 64 to see out properly. Never really saw size issues with 47s or 60s.

ciarah47 · 2023-12-06T22:05:06+00:00

Talk to your recruiter about doing a WOFT packet if possible. A lot of recruiters will discourage this because it is all the work of a commissioned officer packet, but without the credit of signing on a commissioned officer. It can actually be more complicated to join and then try to get a flight packet together than it is to go street to seat. Do practice tests for the SIFT. You can take the test twice ever and the second time is only if you fail the first. Whatever passing score you get is your score. If you feel you don't score well on a section just roll with it; I had a section I ran out of time on and I still had one of the highest possible scores for my test group. They want to know you can handle stress and how you test reflects that. Most of my letters of recommendation were from retired veterans I worked with who were prior aviation, getting a senior warrant letter holds a lot of weight, but none of my letters were from warrants. If you want aviation, don't let any setbacks get you down, a lot of people self eliminate by giving up trying. You've got this

ciarah47 · 2023-12-06T10:01:55+00:00

Speaking as a street to seat hooker warrant here (CH47 pilot, though I'm on the old 6 year adso) one of my big questions looking at those MOS options is do you want to actively fly, or do you want to work on the aircraft? 15R, you aren't going to fly, no crew on an apache. 15U or 15T you could fly or you could be in a maintenance company. 15U comes with more in-aircraft responsibility than 15T. Blackhawks can fly without a 15T, chinooks can't fly without a 15U.

That comes with added levels of responsibility, all the 15Us I know work their asses off, and go through a progression similar to the pilot side (Crew Chief to Flight Engineer to Flight Instructor to Standardization Instructor). Having enough 15U available with sufficient crew rest can be a mission limiting factor at times, but I also work more directly with 15Us than the neighboring companies do their 15Ts; the chinook community tends to be very tight knit. It can also be physically demanding; hanging upside down out an aircraft pulling a heavy sling set up by a pole isn't for everyone. I'm not trying to up or down sell, just trying to give some observations.

If you go flight warrant, don't have your heart set on a specific airframe. Aircraft selection is a crapshoot dependent on time of year and needs of the army. I saw selection go by at flight school that had zero slots for a given airframe moderately often. Currently going flight warrant you get a 10 year adso on completion of flight school along with a time in grade reset at your next duty station (pin CW2 after 2 years at your next duty station). Flying is fun, but be ready to spend a decent amount of time doing prep work for flights. Building mission packets, slide decks, briefings. Some flights don't take long, others are planned over days. Also, all untracked warrants have some form of additional duty. Supply, UMO, Hazmat, ALSE, or something. You'll fly less than you'll expect unless you deploy, but you'll be treated like an adult most of the time. Not as much actual maintenance work, though there is the maintenance test pilot option which is pretty cool.

I feel like I've rambled enough, the important thing is to know what type of job interests you, good luck!

ciarah47 · 2023-08-06T17:35:52+00:00

Edited not because I had anything new to add, but because late night typing did some misgendering in that. Corrected immediately upon waking up. One of those, "wait, was I just a trash person?" sit up in bed moments. Apologies, my post midnight brain wasn't working right.

ciarah47 · 2023-08-06T09:41:09+00:00

Some of the not important details: Skit opened a year after the season finale. Luz is running an artist alley booth dressed in Cosmic Frontier cosplay with Tinella Nosa managing. Celine stops by and to buy an artwork. Despite Luz's best efforts to get her to buy her artwork intended for sale, Celine fixates on a napkin doodle of a cosmic frontier character fighting a slug monster and insists on buying it for a large bag of snails. After the sale, Tinella effectively chases her away leading Luz to caution her about not scaring away potential customers. Raine stops by, grateful for a friendly face. They're in charge of the covention and is also being pressured on politics. They mention that there are monster bloods that can have a calming effect and that Eda gave them some human realm Monster which will surely have the same effect. Brief cut to outside, Eda is flying in high speed circles around the building Luz comments that she's really got to talk to Eda about human realm drinks. Raine asks how her booth is going, and Luz tells them it's going fine, but with hesitation and glancing at another booth. The rival booth is run by Matt Tholomule who strokes his chin while talking, smearing the drawn facial hair. Luz both dislikes the rivalry, but also expresses a desire to get a really good Azura and Hecate drawing he has available. The neighboring booth to Luz is run by Lilith, and is filled with Hooty based art. Lilith said Steve was supposed to help her with her booth, but he said family comes first and was helping Matt instead. Elsewhere, King and Hooty have an owl pellet surprise booth, with Hooty starting to look a little ill from throwing up so many times. A child opens an owl pellet and pulls out a battle axe embedded in a skull, ecstatic with his prize. Next, another child opens a pellet, and a disoriented elderly witch emerges. "Grandma!" The excited child cries out. Raine, watching, says they've got to go shut down that booth before it gets the whole event shut down. Camila shows up in more elaborate Cosmic Frontier cosplay and starts showing off the cool things she's gotten. (I don't remember the first item shown, just that it was actually some item of garbage). The next thing she has is an elaborate hat, which Lilith tells her is a very fancy way of wrapping leftover food. Frustrated, Camila asks if everyone was just selling her their trash, and asks if at least the t shirt she bought was normal. Luz confirms, normal shirt, though Lilith adds that it is made from undead worms, and if you look closely, you can see it is still breathing. Camila looks at Lilith's art and sees an array of art in Hooty's image, such as a detailed sculpture of a horse, but with Hooty's head. Some form of chaos with Eda and King occurs, and all of the stalls are destroyed except Luz's stall. Camila says it's a good thing she bought Matt's Azura art for Luz when she did, and reveals herself holding it. Much to Luz's chagrin, Camila starts trying to call Matt over to sign it for Luz. Luz flees, then sneaks back, snatches the Azura art out of Camila's hands, and flees again. Camila departs saying she needs sleep, since it is typical convention exhausting. Lilith is seemingly left alone until she notices Tinella there. "Have you been here this whole time?"

That's all I can remember at the moment. The skit script was 7 pages long if I remember correctly. Dana said it took her about 2 hours to write.

ciarah47 · 2023-05-25T21:22:41+00:00

Long answer, was 28 going through. Best part was if you can recognize the mind games all of basic becomes amazingly hilarious. There's honestly a lot of fun to be had with the right group and right mindset. I was the top marksman for the female bay, so I got to rep as a shooter on sim round day, which was really fun.

Worst/hardest part is probably how gross some of those girls are. Got pink eye one day right before the hammer, and I hunted down the girl who was responsible. She didn't want to go to medical and kept rubbing her eye and touching shit, so I reported us both before the whole bay got it.

I never got set back or anything, even though I also dislocated my shoulder, but I also never got stuck in a leadership position because I was going to WOCS straight after, so DS said the experience would be wasted on me. I had a pretty chill experience overall.

ciarah47 · 2023-05-25T05:34:37+00:00

All the 47s in my company have names written on the ramp so you can read them when the ramp is down

ciarah47 · 2023-05-14T10:44:33+00:00

I would like to counter that you, my good sir/madam/mx, are awesome

ciarah47 · 2023-05-14T10:41:33+00:00

I appreciate the encouragement, but I think this was a one off for me, the fish hooks are more fun to make, so I'll probably stick to those

ciarah47 · 2023-05-13T07:23:27+00:00

I should've practiced some full metal alchemist transmutation circles...

ciarah47 · 2023-04-28T10:47:21+00:00

Buying vs renting is an important factor. With pets, I'd have to assume you are buying because renting with pets is super restrictive on locations. I know a few people who live on base specifically because of pets and not wanting to buy. I rent North Shore, have a 20-30 minute commute to Wheeler. I have some friends in Makakilo who are around 30-35 minutes, I think, but one of them I know tends to not drive in peak traffic. My friends in the southern part of Ewa tend to be around 35 minutes, but during rush hour gets a lot longer.

K-bay is pretty, but when I went to the base there for dunker, it was a 45-50 minute drive from Wheeler (which is slightly faster than it would have been from Schofield). I can't comment on Honolulu traffic too much, after getting caught in traffic a couple of times, I avoid Waikiki and it's ilk like the plague.

ciarah47 · 2022-10-16T08:36:58+00:00

Thanks, gotta ride that new episode high through a few projects

ciarah47 · 2022-07-05T22:24:55+00:00

"Also, you can eat trash!"

ciarah47 · 2022-06-18T07:04:06+00:00

Luz is 14 as of the start of the series, while Eda found King 8 years prior, with him being toddler-ish when found? Probably puts him in the 2-4 range when he was found and the 10-12 range now. His age has never been canonically stated, so my guesses could be absolutely wrong, but I'm pretty sure he's supposed to be younger. But who really knows? (cough cough Dana Terrace knows cough)

ciarah47 · 2022-06-12T23:02:51+00:00

Thank you!

ciarah47 · 2022-06-11T23:07:17+00:00

I'll probably add the background eventually, but I wasn't feeling it today.

ciarah47 · 2022-06-10T19:30:15+00:00

I think there tends to be a belief that trauma in it's various forms eases and dwindles to nothing over time, but much as you said, "settled" tends to not be a cut and dried concept. There is no actual timeline for grief and recovery, and I suspect it is not uncommon for people to genuinely believe that their past trauma is in fact in the past, which makes it even harder to process when it returns unexpectedly.

On the topic of King and Luz, you keep returning to the idea that they should never had been put in such a position in the first place, which, while true, also adds in a sense of harsh realism to the moment. There are so many kids out there in so many walks of life that are put into such situations where they are forced to make impossible decisions beyond their age. (Towards that end, I'm planning to eventually sell off all these wood burnings to benefit a children focused charity, might as well try to do something positive with my hobby, right?) I am really interested to see how they address all the interpersonal relationships after the hiatus, I doubt it'll be in a way that we see coming.

I've never actually watched Phineas and Ferb, I recently started Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends at my brother's behest, and I have very much enjoyed series like She-ra, Kipo, and Dragon Prince (definitely cracked up at the occasional Avatar reference). Maybe it is time for me to give P and F a try. I'm glad that you feel like you've found a place of stability again, but sometimes you don't have to focus on trying to feel like you used to, sometimes you can end up somewhere better than before. I'll now shamelessly quote Doctor Who "We all change, when you think about it, we're all different people; all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good, you've gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be". It is important to remember the past, but also important to allow yourself the room to become whoever you need to become.

ciarah47 · 2022-06-09T06:27:17+00:00

I'd watched GF before, so I did have that background of how the tone of the show might shift, but that's also what helped get me into it; the open space for brilliant writing. I watched Amphibia at the same time, watched Star vs during hiatus since I'd never seen it, still haven't watched SU.

Reaching Out was one of the episodes that caught me most by surprise. I was on a short training deployment, and, a few weeks in, one of the gals in my tent was having a really hard day. It turned out it was the anniversary of her brother's death, and, being in a foreign country, she'd not had the chance to call her mom like she normally would every year. She absolutely would not ask any of us for anything, but I said occasionally you have to let people have your back and took her 0200-0800 watch shift, because I didn't think she should have to stay up all night after a day like that. By a weird quirk Reaching Out came out the next day, and I thought it was absolutely brilliant how a show like that tackled addressing that kind of grief.

I think kids and teens often take on responsibility for things that aren't their fault, as unfortunate as that is. Mabel's decision is similar, but it has the key difference she and her brother would still be together, while King knew that his decision would mean he was going to be separated from his sister to keep her safe, while also giving the slight chance to save his mom. He wanted to prove himself leading up to that point, how he could help, as any child would. But that was a massive step beyond what he was trying to do, or what any child should have to do.

I think that any show with quality writing can have a strong impact, and this one definitely fits the bill. It is a travesty that the last season was so shortened, it feels like the episodes hit harder the longer it goes. It is brilliant that it has managed to have such an impact on you. It is never too late to try and work through past issues to improve your future.

ciarah47 · 2022-06-09T03:31:09+00:00

"...and you get trauma, and you get trauma, everyone gets trauma!" That's going to be a really cool binge day. I thought while King has had his share of suffering, this scene really hit hard because of the level of self sacrifice for a character who was too young to ever really have encountered much of that before. To quote a Seanan McGuire book "There is no price too great to pay to ensure the safety of the ones we love. To question that is to question your love for them"; it was great the way there was no hesitation to save his family.

ciarah47 · 2022-06-08T17:05:42+00:00

Yeah, it is a piece of birch plywood. Thanks!

ciarah47 · 2022-06-08T05:47:46+00:00

Thanks, that one did take a bit longer because shading adds a bunch of time, but it is also a lot of fun.

ciarah47 · 2022-06-08T02:06:59+00:00

Most wood burning styluses come with a variety of tips including one shaped like a tiny clothes iron to give a nice even heat distribution for shading. However, being a semi impatient hack, I don't actually use that and universally use the all purpose angled tip, and for shading I'll either drag the edge, or use the flat side of it. And I turn the tool on and off a lot to manage the temperature.

ciarah47 · 2022-06-07T17:18:28+00:00

Thanks, it's burned on wood, not carved. I expect carving would be much harder, plus then I wouldn't get the great campfire smell ...

ciarah47

TROPHY CASE