So, I've been battling with the people in my unit that maintain our internet service and finally got a connection again after spending the weekend without any internet. Ordinarily this wouldn't bother me, but I'm in the middle of downloading the TV show 30 Days, which is pretty damn awesome. We have a power outage scheduled for tonight, which means most people are probably going to try and find somewhere else to sleep since last time this happened the barracks turned into a giant sweat box which smelled of dirty feet.
Good news: My commander is playing bari sax on the piece I wrote (he's a much better player than most of the sax players in this unit). It also eliminates the bad vibes given off by the chick that was playing before, so now rehearsals are mostly pleasant. I'll be submitting my application to Brown in the next couple weeks and hopefully that will go well and I'll get the fellowship I'm applying for. My PhD courses start in another week and a half, which is good and bad.
Every time a semester ends I tell myself how I'm going to get ahead in everything. I usually don't, but I bust my ass big time during the semester to get work done early and to make sure I get good grades. I'm looking forward to it, and at the same time not just because I've only really had about a year and a half away from school since I was about 3. It will be good though because it should help me get one of the jobs that I want which would get me back to Europe sooner.
We've also started packing up. Today I've been deployed for 365 days and it's kinda surreal to think that in just a couple more months we'll be back in Germany and things will be completely different. Just being on leave was kinda weird when no one was in uniform since you're taught to always be on your toes and analyzing the situation over here. I could only imagine how much more difficult it was for the people that were on combat patrols all the time.
I'm going to start working on a new piece for Nonet soon. The sandstorms here are spectacular (and I mean that totally from a third party perspective, because they really suck hard). But the onset of a sandstorm usually means a spike in violence, since the insurgents that are use to these types of things are able to use the sandstorm for cover.
Aside from that I'm really looking forward to being in Paris and hopefully getting a new tattoo while I'm there. If not I'll wait until the big tattoo convention in Frankfurt and I'll get it done there, but getting it done in Paris would be much better.
Good news: My commander is playing bari sax on the piece I wrote (he's a much better player than most of the sax players in this unit). It also eliminates the bad vibes given off by the chick that was playing before, so now rehearsals are mostly pleasant. I'll be submitting my application to Brown in the next couple weeks and hopefully that will go well and I'll get the fellowship I'm applying for. My PhD courses start in another week and a half, which is good and bad.
Every time a semester ends I tell myself how I'm going to get ahead in everything. I usually don't, but I bust my ass big time during the semester to get work done early and to make sure I get good grades. I'm looking forward to it, and at the same time not just because I've only really had about a year and a half away from school since I was about 3. It will be good though because it should help me get one of the jobs that I want which would get me back to Europe sooner.
We've also started packing up. Today I've been deployed for 365 days and it's kinda surreal to think that in just a couple more months we'll be back in Germany and things will be completely different. Just being on leave was kinda weird when no one was in uniform since you're taught to always be on your toes and analyzing the situation over here. I could only imagine how much more difficult it was for the people that were on combat patrols all the time.
I'm going to start working on a new piece for Nonet soon. The sandstorms here are spectacular (and I mean that totally from a third party perspective, because they really suck hard). But the onset of a sandstorm usually means a spike in violence, since the insurgents that are use to these types of things are able to use the sandstorm for cover.
Aside from that I'm really looking forward to being in Paris and hopefully getting a new tattoo while I'm there. If not I'll wait until the big tattoo convention in Frankfurt and I'll get it done there, but getting it done in Paris would be much better.