New Journal - Update from the US Merchant Marine Academy
Hey Everybody!
Just thought I would start a journal to give you all an update from Kings Point! I figured you could follow our progress by choice, instead of me mass-emailing. This entry might be a little long just to bring you all up to date. Currently, us guys (and gals) have been here for about 22 days. We're done with "Indoctrination" [our version of boot camp, just not as rigorous]. In this period, we did some pretty good exercising, learned how to march, fold clothes the military way, square away our rooms and all that good stuff to prepare us to be a part of this school. If you want to see more of what we did, go to www.usmma.edu and check out the "Indoctrination" link...ultimately, about 6000 pictures were posted over the two week period.
After Indoc, we had a two day break to get all our school supplies in order, learn where all the academic buildings were, and just have a time to relax. A couple of my buddies and I went down to the waterfront to try and hitch some rides on boats but it was pretty inactive at that time. (By the way, we have the #1 college waterfront in the nation, due to its location, a 224 foot research vessel - T/V Kings Pointer, and the other millions of dollars worth of equipment of all kinds that we've acquired over the years sitting in our basin) I'm sure you'll see pictures of it on the school home page as well. So we got our class schedules and prepared for classes to begin on Wednesday, the 28th of July. As far as classes go, we all have pretty full schedules filled with Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, English, Ethics, Sea Power and other necessary maritime classes - a combination of these puts us (or at least me) at 18 credits per 3-month TRImester. So thus far, I've had all my classes at least once, and all the professors are great. All from different backgrounds, civvies as well as Navy, NOAA, and Marines. My Ethics teacher was actually one of the Black Hawk pilots during the conflict, and his buddy was one of the pilots who were lost. He's a big dude, I'll leave it at that.
So classes and everything are going well. The key here, just like every other school, is to stay on top of everything and do it the minute its assigned. This is especially true here because any one of us can be hit with a watch shift of 4 hours.
On Friday, we were all rewarded with an Ice Cream social at one of the on-campus mini-mansions Walter Chrysler left behind when he sold the estate to Uncle Sam. After that, 1st Company (my company) was able to go get their computers a day earlier than everyone else. After that, those who wanted to, made their way over to Ackerman Auditorium to watch Starsky and Hutch...great movie. One thing that I didn't expect was that we would actually have as much freedom as we do. I mean, I know its college - but we're lower on the food chain than squirrels right now...so to have this kind of freedom is nice.
This morning we had the 5K alumni run. That was a good time. I ran with my buddies until we got to the first mile marker and I realized we were running at 8:15/mile...I ended up finishing at 153 with a 23:30 (don't laugh too hard) My room mate is a CC recruit and posted a 18:37 which put him in 6th overall. After that, our next big activity was a Company Scavenger Hunt. So we got our war paint on and any other random stuff we could put on ourselves in an obscure manner to let people know exactly who we were: embarrassed, but proud plebes. We went deck against deck (there are four floors in our "dorm") and went out and got as much stuff as we could. This is where we all got the second 5K of the day in. This might be a pretty small campus, but they knew what things to put on the list to make us run. A lot. We ended up losing, but since it was so close, we got SODA privileges for the day. You have to understand that when you come here, you start back at ZERO. You slowly earn what you once took for granted.
So, you're brought up to speed and this should mean that any subsequent entries shouldn't require and ISBN number. Tomorrow will be another relaxed day, we'll be able to sleep in until 11:30, go to services, make phone calls and just do whatever we want to do. And then the first full week of school begins!
Spencer
Just thought I would start a journal to give you all an update from Kings Point! I figured you could follow our progress by choice, instead of me mass-emailing. This entry might be a little long just to bring you all up to date. Currently, us guys (and gals) have been here for about 22 days. We're done with "Indoctrination" [our version of boot camp, just not as rigorous]. In this period, we did some pretty good exercising, learned how to march, fold clothes the military way, square away our rooms and all that good stuff to prepare us to be a part of this school. If you want to see more of what we did, go to www.usmma.edu and check out the "Indoctrination" link...ultimately, about 6000 pictures were posted over the two week period.
After Indoc, we had a two day break to get all our school supplies in order, learn where all the academic buildings were, and just have a time to relax. A couple of my buddies and I went down to the waterfront to try and hitch some rides on boats but it was pretty inactive at that time. (By the way, we have the #1 college waterfront in the nation, due to its location, a 224 foot research vessel - T/V Kings Pointer, and the other millions of dollars worth of equipment of all kinds that we've acquired over the years sitting in our basin) I'm sure you'll see pictures of it on the school home page as well. So we got our class schedules and prepared for classes to begin on Wednesday, the 28th of July. As far as classes go, we all have pretty full schedules filled with Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, English, Ethics, Sea Power and other necessary maritime classes - a combination of these puts us (or at least me) at 18 credits per 3-month TRImester. So thus far, I've had all my classes at least once, and all the professors are great. All from different backgrounds, civvies as well as Navy, NOAA, and Marines. My Ethics teacher was actually one of the Black Hawk pilots during the conflict, and his buddy was one of the pilots who were lost. He's a big dude, I'll leave it at that.
So classes and everything are going well. The key here, just like every other school, is to stay on top of everything and do it the minute its assigned. This is especially true here because any one of us can be hit with a watch shift of 4 hours.
On Friday, we were all rewarded with an Ice Cream social at one of the on-campus mini-mansions Walter Chrysler left behind when he sold the estate to Uncle Sam. After that, 1st Company (my company) was able to go get their computers a day earlier than everyone else. After that, those who wanted to, made their way over to Ackerman Auditorium to watch Starsky and Hutch...great movie. One thing that I didn't expect was that we would actually have as much freedom as we do. I mean, I know its college - but we're lower on the food chain than squirrels right now...so to have this kind of freedom is nice.
This morning we had the 5K alumni run. That was a good time. I ran with my buddies until we got to the first mile marker and I realized we were running at 8:15/mile...I ended up finishing at 153 with a 23:30 (don't laugh too hard) My room mate is a CC recruit and posted a 18:37 which put him in 6th overall. After that, our next big activity was a Company Scavenger Hunt. So we got our war paint on and any other random stuff we could put on ourselves in an obscure manner to let people know exactly who we were: embarrassed, but proud plebes. We went deck against deck (there are four floors in our "dorm") and went out and got as much stuff as we could. This is where we all got the second 5K of the day in. This might be a pretty small campus, but they knew what things to put on the list to make us run. A lot. We ended up losing, but since it was so close, we got SODA privileges for the day. You have to understand that when you come here, you start back at ZERO. You slowly earn what you once took for granted.
So, you're brought up to speed and this should mean that any subsequent entries shouldn't require and ISBN number. Tomorrow will be another relaxed day, we'll be able to sleep in until 11:30, go to services, make phone calls and just do whatever we want to do. And then the first full week of school begins!
Spencer