trippy

Trigonal Pyramidal

Not too much has been going on the past few days. I've just been living life as always so that it can be fun fun fun 'til my daddy takes my T-bird away.

I'll post more in the very near future...
for now I need an I/O Shield. Anyone have one?

Letters From Olivia

This is Olivia's first letter from Marines bootcamp, typed word-for-word as it is on the letter she wrote to Nathalie and me. Post any comments you want, and I'll tell them all to Olivia in my next letter to her.

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Nathalie & Chris,

I would have written sooner, but, well, I've been just a tad busy. It's been really crazy the past couple weeks and this is like the third letter I have been able to write (which is going to take me several days but that's Life for ya.)

Anyway, that was just an FYI so you know why it takes me awhile to write back. now to what I've been up to for the past two weeks. Well, actually three since you guys were in France. There wasn't really a lot to do. I hung out with my family and I got to spend time with Amanda. She's gotten so big! And she's so adorable! I took her up to After Hours and put her hand prints on a mug and let her paint the plate that went with it. It looked so cute! I can't wait to see it. I also let her paint a butterfly bank which she really seemed to enjoy. For my last meal, on Sunday we went to Red Lobster for lunch. I ate a bunch, but man was it good (you wouldn't agree [Nathalie], but I think Chris would :)). Then I went to the hotel, which was ok, kinda boring really. I saw Alias though! Sooo good. I want to know what is on those papers though.

Anyway, so the next morning I spent a bunch of time sitting around MEPS waiting. Then just as I sat down for lunch, they called my name and another girl's over the speaker to ship. We got all of our papers (didn't get to eat lunch though) and headed to DFW where we immediately got on our plane. We had a layover in Chicago but had to run to catch our next plane (which was a bitch to find the gate, we had to get help). I slept on both flights. Then we got to the airport and the fun started right away. We were marched into a room and had to do all this stuff and then we sat for awhile and then got on the bus to Parris Island. I slept again on the bus but at least my nerves had calmed down and I no longer felt like throwing up! Then a couple minutes in they woke us up and made us ride with our heads facing down. Then we lined up and filed in to the processing center. It was pretty crazy. Drill Instructors yelling and filling out all sorts of paper work. We got a phone call but all we could say was "This is Recruit Wise. I have arrived safely on Parris Island. Do not send bulky items or food. I will contact you by mail with my address in 3-5 days. Bye!" I think that was the hardest part. Not being able to actually talk to my parents. Then we filled out a whole bunch of paperwork and got issued our cami's, shoes, boots, hygiene stuff. Pretty much a whole bunch of stuff. Then we had to organize it all, fill out more paperwork. I don't even remember what all we did because we didn't sleep for like 36 hours. Man was it hard to stay awake. Then we finally got to our barracks but we still had more processing studd to do over the next 3 days. We received shots, got new crappy glasses (these things are so ugly and uncomfortable), went to dental, were issued out M16's and a whole bunch of other stuff that I can't really remember (a lot of the past couple weeks is a blur). Finally, we met our Drill Instructors. They're really not as bad as I thought they would be, so that's a plus. Our Senior Drill Instructor is ubercool. She has her mean moments, but overall she's cool. Then we have two Drill Instructors under her who are basically in charge of us. They teach us and march us to our classes. Our Senior DI does some of that too. SSgt. Wise (yeah, I know, I got screwed, they already know my name), one of our regular DI's, is ok. She can be bad at times but she's still pretty cool. The other one, SSgt. Ritzco, man do I dislike that woman. She is just demon spawn. I despise her duty nights. Just three more months though...sigh.

We've already started training and everything. Everything's pretty fast paced but that's a good thing. It makes the day go by quickly. I'm already sore and bruised though. Standing most of the day pretty much sucks too. And the way we sit isn't exactly comfortable. The weather isn't too bad yet. A couple times it's been really hot but that's about it. The weather changes really quickly here too. Like yesterday it was uber hot outside in the afternoon and then night after evening chow it starts pouring down rain. The classes are pretty cool, we learn a lot. The part that sucks for me is physical training (PT). It just...man that stuff sucks. Hopefully I'll get better at it though. Oh, the really fun part so far is the martial arts training. Man that shit is fun. So far all we've done is a couple bayonet techniques and punches though. It is so fun to beat the crap out of a dummy with a rifle (bayonet attached) or punch the hell out of a bag. I feel sorry for the girl holding the bag though. I kept knocking her back. The other only really sucky part is IT (incentive training) where you go to the front of the squad bay or sand pit and do certain exercises and yell and stuff. It wears you out. Luckily I've only had to go like 2 times. We'll see as the months progress. The first two training weeks are supposed to be the hardest, so we'll see how this next week goes. Oh! And the food doesn't suck. It's actually pretty good.

Let's see...anything else...oh yeah. I was a squad leader for about four days, which is actually pretty good. Compared to the rest I lasted pretty long. We barely get showers here. We have time to run in get wet and run out and that's it. Except for Sundays, Sundays we actually get like 20 mins to shower. But we do everything so quickly so there ya go. I still can't believe I go to bed at like 9:00 every night and get up at 5:00. I've even started waking up 30 mins before they actually come out and wake us up. I'm making a couple friends, my rackmate and two people in the racks beside me. Some people I already wish would be dropped but oh well. Thus is Life. Anyway, g2g. Things to do and such. Please write! Getting letters is the best part of my day! Bye.

-Livvie

WTF, Mate

I just saw a commercial for a pill to fight "daily fatigue."

FATIGUE!!! WTF?!?!

I'm going to win the lottery

I have decided that I did way too much stuff in Paris to post about, so I'll just leave you with the fact that I have lots of pictures of the trip. If you ever want to see them, they're right on my computer, and I can tell you all about each picture then. It'd be much more fun that way, anyway, don't you think?

Nathalie and I got a letter from Olivia in bootcamp the other day. She wants me to post all of her letters, so I'll get around to that later today. Whatever comments the posts for her letters get, I am going to write her and tell her what people are saying. It'll be fun!

I have 6 gmail invitations at my fingertips. I think it's time google end its testing and start it up for real. They need to compete with Yahoo's new 100 MB free email, too.

I'm going to start putting random quotes on my sidebar and updating them very often.

Paris Trip Part II

**This is a continuation of the post below**

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The next morning, we ate breakfast at the apartment (as we did every morning)then went to see the Eiffel Tower. On the way to the Tower, we passed a very large palace (Trocadero) that was made for some aniversary of the Tower. It serves as a kind of "entrance" to the large structure from far away and serves as a very nice place from which to take pictures. From there we walked down a hill and across the river (via a bridge, of course) to the Eiffel Tower. It was so big. I always knew that it was large, but you really should see it in person to understand just how big of a feat it actually is. It was the world's tallest structure until the Empire State Building. From there we walked another long distance across the Champ de Mars (a big park-type thing leading to the Eiffel Tower from the other direction) to the Ecole Militare (the Military Academy), where we hopped on the subway to Arc de Triumph (that big arch in the middle of a really big traffic circle). Nathalie and I went to the top and looked around for a while at all of Paris and the 12 (12!) streets radiating out from the traffic circle under us. The biggest street coming from the circle was Champs Elysée, a street famous for lots and lots of stores lining the road. We all (me, Nathalie, and her parents) walked down that street (stopping to eat lunch) to the Concorde, where a big obelisk that Napoleon took from Egypt is at. We took the subway from there to the Invalides (right near our apartment) where Napoleon and some other people are burried. Napoleon's tomb is set lower in the ground and over a rail so that people have to bow whenever they want to see him. We didn't go see the tombs, though, because they weren't worth the money or time. We went back to the apartment and ate and rested for a little bit before going out again that night to see Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter (a lot like the French Quarter in Naw'lins) at nighttime. The Latin Quarter has lots of little restaurants (lots of gyros) and shops (with big cheeses in the windows.

That's the end of Day 1 of my Paris Trip, but my dad wants to use the internet on my computer for a little bit, so bye for now.

Royale with Cheese

Firstly, I guess I should explain my lack of posting. Once my brother's wedding was over, I didn't have the internet in my room for a long time. My parents' computer sucks, so I didn't want to have to use that ever. And I was never at a computer at Nathalie's house long enough to post a good post. However, I moved the DSL modem into my room recently, and I have just been too unmotivated to post until now. I sincerely apologise, and I will of course try to post every day or so from now on. I really do enjoy writing on this. Please don't hold it against me...

So my trip to Paris was uber great. I know I told you I'd have pictures, but I don't have a server or a good place to put them, so no pictures (for now, at least). The flight to Raleigh, NC, was pointless, but the flight to London was very fun. We flew in a 777, which means that we all got out own little personal TVs on which we could choose what to watch. And we even got our seats changed to front-row seats so that we had a lot more leg room. The arm rests were stationary, though, which made it pretty hard to sleep.

For our layover in London, we took a really fast train from Gatwick Airport to Victoria Station. This, of course, was after I waited in a huge line of people wanting to be imported into Britain. But Nathalie has a French passport (having been born there), so she got to go through the much quicker European Community line. She got our plane tickets and found out where to go as I waited in line. Then she waited some more for me. From there, we walked to Buckingham Palace and then through a very large park to a nice area of the city on our way to Tralfagor Square. We looked around at all the sites in the square for a while, then we decided to walk back to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. Taking a large detour, we ended up walking near Westminster Abbey (Big Ben and Parliament), and through another large park where we saw a huge gathering of Buckingham Palace guards doing their jobs (walking around in a circle?). We then went to the changing of the guards, which was the most boring part of the entire London Experience. It was just a few guards walking back and forth, back and forth. Then some more guards came and watched them walk back and forth. We left that and ate some pasta before heading back to the airport. The airport was bad. They wouldn't tell you what gate your plane was leaving from until about 30 minutes before departure, which made us really nervous because we kept wanting to sleep while waiting for the flight to be announced on some big LCD screen. We eventually made it to our flight and flew an hour across the Channel to Paris.

Once at Paris, Nathalie's parents picked us up from the airport. Customs in Paris was very, very simple. I basically just walked right through (no line to wait in at all or any questions to answer). We took about an hour-long train ride to the subway station next to the apartment in which we were staying, where Nathalie and I got our week-long subway tickets, which we used to get around Paris the whole time we were there. We put our stuff away, then ate dinner, after which we wanted a short nap before heading out to see the city for the first time (it was about 9:00 p.m.). A few hours later, we were woken up by her parents, and they told us we shouldn't go out because we were so tired, so we just went back to sleep for the rest of the night.

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This has been Paris Trip Part I. Part II will be coming soon (later today or tomorrow).