Last Wednesday as a Cadet

So today is my last Wednesday as a Cadet (as I graduate and commission on Saturday). Before graduation, all of us graduating firsties have to go through a series of stations to out process of West Point, making the entire ordeal sort of like a crazy scavenger hunt. Some of the things we have to do to out process includes picking up our personnel file, our medical file, and our dental file, returning our issued cadet telephones, talking with the Department of Physical Education people to settle any money issues, talking with the computer people to get rid of no longer authorized security certificates on our computers, talking with the yearbook people to make sure our yearbook photo looks alright, and last but definitely not least, returning all of our issued stuff. The last bit is the event that's taking the longest to do, as the civilian workers get over tasked (1,000+ cadets trying to return stuff and literally only two (2) people working!) Over the summer, the civilians who issue cadets items get reinforced by teenagers who work for the summer and I can't imagine why they wouldn't do something similar to that right now; it would really help out a lot. For example, I showed up to turn in my stuff at 12:35 yesterday but didn't get helped until almost 3! Once I got up there though, I was in and out within 5 minutes tops-- just goes to show you how long the lines were you know?

We also had graduation parade practice today (I actually paused blogging while I went to drill, and am finishing up right now. The time is now 10:07AM). Drill, which is usually miserable in and of itself, was made even more so because of the rain, which fell hard at times. The drill leadership was also terrible, as it seemed like no one was in sync and no one really knew what to do. We ended drill practice just pissed off that we were out there for 3 hours and didn't really accomplish much. The parade field (aka The Plain) also looks like a mess right now because they decided to hold drill in the pouring rain-- with 4000+ cadets marching on wet grass, its no surprise certain areas look like swamps.

I also just got back from bringing the boxes I want to bring to Benning to the movers-- that line didn't take too long. I'm also bringing a trunk of stuff I'll need to survive the first few days at Benning with me in my car, as I'm going to drive it down to Benning this summer.

My parents also just arrived today in New York and I'll be meeting up with them later to attend the Supe's reception.

All in all, it's getting real-- Graduation is in 3 days!