Internship{s} - Follow up

I found out about the internship - I'm going to Sandia labs in NM! I'm stoked, not only because that was one of my top picks, but also because I'm going with a great group of people. I'm going with three other dudes from my major who are all cool. I was worried for a while because I know the internships are usually selected based on academic performance, and the ones with the highest grades are really tough to be around/hang out with at times - which is saying something considering I was home schooled and am somewhat used to that! It all worked out though, and I can't wait to get started on the acceptance/application procedures. Now I'm just hoping that I get the internship in the first half of the summer so I can attend my friend's wedding!

-Storm

Internship{s}

This summer I'm guaranteed to speed at least 6 weeks deployed with an operational unit, but for the other 5 weeks of my summer I've applied for an internship. Well, actually, I applied for 5 internships. The first was an aviation internship, since I want to be a pilot. The next 4 were through the engineering department at my school, they were NASA, Sandia National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. They were all pretty selective internships, only 8 people were picked for the aviation internship out of my class, and they only send 2 people to NASA and 4 to each national laboratory. Turns out I was accepted to the aviation internship and have been selected for one of the engineering ones as well, although they have only told me I'm probably getting my first or second choice (NASA or Sandia, respectively). I'm pretty excited, I was definitely surprised to find out that I was selected for both. Unfortunately I can only pick one, so I declined the aviation internship and went with an engineering one. I'm thinking that the engineering one is too huge of an opportunity to pass up - I'll either be working at NASA or working on the cutting edge of classified military equipment. Pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for most people I would say, and I am certainly no exception. The aviation internship would be an absolute blast, but comparatively I think the engineering internship would be more beneficial to me, certainly if I decide to go to grad school and probably if I go to flight school, also. My only hope is that my internship occurs in the beginning of the summer so that I can be present when my high school buddy, Shane, gets married! I wouldn't want to miss that for the world.

I'll keep y'all posted!

-Storm

Last Night

As I mentioned in the previous post, I've been struggling with knowing what God has planned for me, especially concerning one particular girl that I see when I make it back home to Texas. If I followed my own advice I would have just told her how I felt, but for the longest time that seemed like an unwise choice and when I prayed about it I never felt at peace with that decision. That is, until this last time. I really felt like I should have an open conversation on the topic with her, and even though I hung out with her the night before I left it never happened. I felt pretty bad about it, and the entire next day as I flew back to the Academy I felt as though I had missed an important opportunity. I took advantage of the long flight hours to do some praying, trying to find out if God really wanted me to move forward with this deal. For the first time I felt like God wanted me to finally be honest with her.

So I called her last night. It was somewhat hard for me to do, people say that guys have a hard time talking about their feelings and unfortunately I am no exception. The surprising thing was that she thought we had already covered this about a year and half ago, which I don't remember. I know I had asked if she had wanted to go to a military formal when I got back home, but other than that we had never talked about us. Regardless, we talked last night. I asked her how she viewed our relationship, then told her how I felt. That part went surprisingly well, God really helped me through the whole thing. The outcome was rather predictable, for me at least. After I gave my spill she told me that she thought I was a good guy and a great friend, and although she wasn't completely opposed to the idea of us dating later she didn't think it was a good idea for the present time. She really appreciated me being honest with her, she said it is always nice when guys will actually share how they feel.

Effectively, she was turning me down. I wasn't too upset though, I completely understand not wanting to jump into a long-distance relationship like that, especially in the early stages of college and without a very solid prior-existing relationship as a foundation. She was very kind and considerate about the whole deal, I was thankful for that. We understand each other and agree with decisions we were able to make. I told her to feel free to call if she ever needed anything, but that I wouldn't necessarily be making an effort to stay in touch this semester as I had in semesters previous. She said that was a good idea and then basically wished me a good semester.

I'm very happy I followed God's direction and was honest with her. It's so much better to be honest with someone, and it was killing me to not be open with her even though I felt that was God's leading up until now. When I got off the phone I realized that at this point it was completely in God's hands, so I prayed and asked God to take the relationship into His hands so I didn't have to worry about it anymore. It was a very freeing experience. I don't know what His plans are for the relationship, if there even are any, but I am at peace with the fact that at this point those plans will not authored by me and in fact won't be authored at all unless by Him.

That should just about get it for my touchy feely feelings for a while, remember to always follow God's direction, and when in doubt just be honest with people. Also, it's okay to be single while you're waiting on God. You'll be happy you did!

-Storm

New Years

First off, happy new year to all of you!

Secondly, why is the end of my military leave always so...depressing? I really hate that word, it is overused by people too lazy to get up and deal with their problems. However, I'll admit that for a few days every time I come home I get depressed. Thankfully there's a fail-safe cure - reading my Bible and working out. It works every time!

Usually, this is where my train of thought ends. But I'm just tired of it. Why do I have to deal with this every time I'm home? And why at the end of leave? Obviously there's a reason. I believe its a combination of a few things, namely:

1. I really love being home, and no matter what I'm going back to it never seems to measure up to being home (especially in the winter).

2. A girl.

#1 is pretty self explanatory. I've made incredible friends up at the Academy, they're my best friends by far, now. Even as I write this I am reflecting on those relationships and realize that I miss seeing them, even though it's been a mere two weeks since I've last seen them. Even so, Texas is amazing and miss it as soon as I leave.

#2 is a bit harder to explain. There's this one girl that has held me captive off and on for the past 2 1/2 - 3 years - and the only "off times" during that time span were times when I managed to convince myself to giver her up. And this is pathetic. I realize that. Here's the story:

I met her just a few months before leaving for the Academy. I barely knew her when I left, but I was fascinated with her. She wrote me a few times over that first summer of boot camp, which was awesome. Then during that first year when I unfortunately let all my previous relationships go by the wayside I think she moved on. I honestly have no idea whether or not we would have had anything, but I'm fairly certain that at this point she sees us as no more than friends. I've tried keeping in contact with her, tried getting to know her better, and all to very little avail. During my second summer, while standing watch in the northern atlantic ocean on a ship, she still managed to creep into my thoughts. It would be freezing cold outside, driving sleet, my survival suit sleeves would be iced over, and I absolutely hated my life. Yet in those dark, wee hours of the morning I couldn't help but think about her. It's been that way for most of my time at the Academy.

When I'm home I usually manage to see her once or twice during the break, usually over a meal or something of that nature. If it's just us it's amazing. We have great conversations and I always come away from it on cloud nine. Sadly, many of the meetings we've had were with her friends. She's a couple years younger than I and went to a private school, so up until this break her friends have been these close-knit private school kids with whom I have nothing in common and I usually end up sitting with them but not able to contribute anything to the conversations at hand. Really awkward, more awkward than an awkward turtle.

At this point most would ask my why I haven't told her of my feelings. I don't have a solid answer. The best answer I can give is that it feels like that would be a terrible thing to do. As I previously mentioned, we don't know each other very well. Further, we live over 2000 miles apart, and I only come home about 2 times a year. I think my fear is that if I told her how I feel that would make what relationship we have even more awkward and what little we have would fall apart. On the other hand, perhaps I'm just super chicken. She's this amazing, beautiful girl that I talk with only occasionally and I'm considering telling her that I've been head over heels for her for years? Maybe I'm afraid of the long-distance relationship. Am I really considering asking out a girl that I'll live 2000 miles away from for most of the year, seeing her only a handful of times (at best), without any firm relationship foundation? Would I even be capable of making that work? And what about her? Is that fair of me to ask that much of her? I think the answer is no, that wouldn't be fair of me.

If I followed my own advice that I have given to many others, I would tell her my true feelings. If nothing else I owe her that, and even if I get rejected I'd feel much better about it myself. Didn't Jesus say something to the extent of "The truth will set you free"? Man, dangerous words, those. Maybe it's the fact that I'm writing this at 2 am, maybe I just needed to hash this out, but this seems like the wisest choice. Maybe being completely open and honest with her is the first step to working through the depressing last few days of leave that perpetually plague the tail end of my leave... Or maybe I'll just go read my Bible, work out, and feel completely refreshed like always.

I'll keep you posted

-Storm

I love Christmas

Despite the fact that it has been forever since I have written here, I would like to express my absolute love of Christmas, as well as being home. I know a lot of people loose interest in the "holiday season" as they grow older, but I have come to enjoy it more and more. I think this is because I used to take family time for granted. Now that I only get to see my family 2-3 times a year, I have come to treasure the time I have with them. This, and freedom, are why I love home so much. Also, the people here. I have yet to find people anywhere else that are of the same caliber as those here (sorry if you're not from around here, you're probably a great person but I just love the people here). But Christmas is especially awesome for a few reasons.

First, Christmas music. I love Christmas music. Unfortunately, it seems that fewer and fewer of my friends share my love for the music genre, but I always look forward to playing Christmas music and often start well before Thanksgiving.

Secondly, everyone appears happy. There seems to be less fighting, much more getting along, and overall cheer fills the cold, sharp air. Now, as some of my pessimistic friends have pointed out, for many people it is nothing but an act. Some are really good at playing the part and some try but are terrible at hiding their fake smile. I have a fairly good ability to read people and can usually spot those playing the part with some ease. Regardless, it is often still a more enjoyable atmosphere. Perhaps sometimes it's ok to hide one's feelings. I'm sure that a child, who often cannot read the illegitimate happy front, benefits much more from the cheery parent than they would from an honest but glum parent. It is a well known phenomena how a person's cheer or gloom can spread to others, so when people appear happy, regardless of their true emotion, it often spreads. I really appreciate this aspect of Christmas. Ideally, a happy atmosphere would occur year-round. I try to fulfill this dream in my own life, realizing, of course, that we all have bad days. But the reality of the world is that it does not, so the Christmas cheer that seems rather universal (at least in our country) is a great time for me.

Last, and probably most important to some members of my family, is the food. Christmas and Thanksgiving are the "amazing meal" holidays and I love to eat. I love eating almost as much as I love sleeping. I eat military food most of the year anyway, so I'm pretty much in heaven during the entirety of these two holidays.

Suffice it to say, I truly enjoy Christmas. This year in general has been great, though. It is fitting to have an awesome Christmas break to end a great year on. The past semester went well, I ended up with a term GPA of 3.49, bringing my cumulative up to a 3.05. Not that great for an average college student, but military college is a bit different and sadly I'm still recovering from my first semester there. I'm applying for an internship next summer and one of the requirements is to have a cumulative GPA of 3.00 or greater, so I finally meet that requirement and that was my goal. Additionally, my best friend and I have come up with an idea for our senior design project that we'll start next school year, so we'll be writing up a proposal for that next semester. Overall it has been a fantastic year, and I'm looking forward to what I have ahead of me! God has been so good to me, I really have no right to complain. Any time that I feel down or tempted to complain, I need to remember what they used to say: "Count your blessings..."

How was your year? Share your blessings and spread the cheer!

-Storm

Concert follow-up

So the concert was amazing! Definitely one of the best I've ever been to. I missed Easton Corbin because we got there a little late, but I heard Sara Evans, Darius Rucker, Jason Aldean, and Brad Paisley! If I ever get the chance to go to any of their concerts again I'll jump on the opportunity. I brought my new camera along and got some cool pictures too. This first picture is of Sara Evans during her concert. It takes some great low-light photos and that was great since a lot of the concert was at sunset and after it was dark. The picture at the end of my post is of from Jason Aldean's show. After the show we headed up to New Hampshire to stay with some friends who graduated from the academy this past year. There's four of them that live in an amazing house in the woods. If that's what I have to look forward to as an Ensign then I'm pretty stoked. Hopefully we'll have something like that (whoever I get stationed with) down at flight school!

All in all it was a great wee

kend trip, and a

great way to start off the school year (which looks to be another tough semester).

-Storm

Country Music Fest!

Tomorrow I'm going to the Country Music Fest in Massachusetts and I must admit, I am completely stoked about this! Brad Paisley, Jason Aldean, Easton Corbin, Sarah Evans, Darius Rucker, and more will all be playing there. They don't always get so many big names together like that, plus I've never heard any of them in concert before. I'm going with a lot of friends too, probably close to 20 of my friends are going to be there, and many of us will be all be seated together.

In other news, I bought a camera a couple weeks ago and finally got it this week. It is a Sony NEX-5 camera, one of the new hybrid digital cameras that takes near-DSLR quality pictures but is half the size of a DSLR. I've been playing with it quite a bit and I really enjoy it. Many people don't realize that I actually love photography, until this past week all I've ever shot with was a point-and-shoot cannon, which, although it did it's job superbly for the past 5 years, doesn't take the quality pictures necessary to do some real photography. I'm looking forward to using this camera a lot in the future (one of my friends is getting engaged next semester, it'll be awesome to record that whole thing in HD and then take some awesome pics later!).

Also, school starts next Monday. I'm only taking 17.5 hours this semester (as compared with the usual 20 or more), but some of the classes will definitely be challenging. Thankfully, last semester I found a study buddy in my major that I do a lot of homework with. Together, we were able to solve pretty much all of the homework problems for the entire semester. Some classes, Dynamics in particular, often had problems that most people couldn't get the right answer to. We normally figured them out, and if we couldn't we would collaborate with some other super-smart people in our major and eventually figured them all out. This semester should be pretty fun, or, at least I'll learn a lot.

I'll let you know how the music fest goes!

-Storm

Finally done.

Yesterday marked the last day of swab summer for the incoming class of 2014, and they are now members of the respected corps of cadets, although they are not officially cadets until monday when they get their shoulder boards. I could probably fill 50 pages full with stories from being a cadre in their "boot camp" experience, but I won't at this time. Perhaps I'll put up stories from time to time. What I will say now, however, is that I learned much more going through it as a cadre than I did as a swab. Sure, going through it initially and being indoctrinated into the military is important, key, in fact, to surviving the military. But being on the other side was something completely different. It is up to us to mold these people into a motivated, high performing, teamwork-oriented, flawless group.

My classmates took this group of 35 kids fresh out of high school who didn't know each other at all and turned them into basically trained coast guard men and women in just over 6 weeks (with a week on a ship away from us). Finding the perfect balance of punishment and motivation each day is harder than I had ever imagined. If they messed up they had to be held accountable. And at the beginning of the summer we didn't worry about motivating them at all. That was the breaking down phase. But these last two weeks required us to mold them into a motivated, dedicated team. And if all we did was beat them to the ground they would never perform. In fact, I found that the tone we set when we woke them up had the largest effect on how they would perform for the rest of the day. One of my classmates, a great guy, has a tendency to be a hard ass in the morning, always yelling at them early in the morning when we do the morning cals, etc. So I tried to be the one to wake them up. I'd blast some rock at 0530, and as soon as they got up and counted off I'd say "4 minutes, head and water break, go". Nobody wants to do a lot of talking early in the morning, and even less people want to hear a lot of talking that early. As soon as they'd get back it would always be something like "Who's psyched for cals?! hoorah sir! It's going to be on the parade field, I want you all to fly out there like a bunch of badasses and freakin shake the earth with your pushups!! OOORAH!!! FOXTROT HUUUUUH!!" The pace we set in the morning normally set the tone for the rest of the day.

I learned lessons such as these almost every day about all sorts of things. Yesterday was sea trials. When I went through swab summer it was the worst day of my life. Not even kidding. To this day it was the worst day I've ever had. Going through it as a cadre it was still extremely hard, almost as hard as going through as a swab. We definitely make it a memorable culminating event for the swabs, they'll never forget yesterday. Ever. We ran from 0330 in the morning until around 1830, waking them up to the sound of an air raid siren (and me being in a rain suit with gas mask already in one of their rooms and yelling at them to push deck because their ship was sinking - yeah, it didn't make sense but they were so scared it didn't matter). It was so intense that morning that some compared it to reporting-in day, which as I'm sure you've all seen on TV or something, is super intense. We were yelling at them for everything, and if any one of them messed up on anything we made them push deck or do squats or something physical. We literally were killing them physically ALL DAY. Obviously there were times when they weren't doing physical things, but the majority of the day was spent doing something physical. Thankfully, we were able to instill a sense of pride and accomplishment by the end of the day that overruled the pain from the day and in some convoluted way, made everything we did that day worth it.

At one particular point, we had just finished making them run to an island, row huge inflatable rafts back to the Academy, carry them around the track, and form back up into a company. However, we heard one of the swabs tell another swab to "Shut the fuck up" while they were coming up with a plan on how to get everyone in the rafts and rowing. So for the next hour while we were taking them in twos to test them on sailing, we beat everything out of the swabs. It was literally and hour of intensive training in the dirt. If it hadn't have been for the fact that they had lunch right after that then I am positive they would have passed out on their run to the next event. Thankfully they got the message. You just don't talk to your classmates or teammates that way.

Like I said, I have so many stories and lessons that I could spend forever writing them. Perhaps I will, but for now that is all.

P.S. I've spent most of the day sleeping today!

-Storm

Talk with your Parents, it's worth it

I leave home again to return to the Academy tomorrow, but today I did something I don't usually do. I had lunch with my Dad and we talked for about 2 1/2 hours. Mainly, some things that I've been seeing the past few times I have been home have bothered me and I decided I needed to call him on them and see what he had to say.

For those of you who don't know my Dad or anything about my family, something like this is almost unheard of. This household has always been a totalitarian house, we were expected to do what we were told, when we were told, without question. So for me to go to lunch with Dad and start pointing out things that I didn't necessarily agree with or that I thought needed to be addressed was pretty tough for me. However, it went much better than I had ever hoped. Dad was a pretty decent listener, he actually listened to what I had to say in it's entirety before he started talking, and although he didn't agree with everything I said he didn't make it into something bad. We talked for a very long time about some of the big issues facing our family right now, plans to deal with those issues, and what he thought the future (at least the near future) holds for our family. It was an altogether fruitful venture!

Of course, after pointing out all these things I'd found that needed talking about I asked Dad what he had for me. What had he seen in me the past few weeks or even just from talking with me while I was at the Academy that concerned him or that he thought was an area I needed to look at in my life. After all, one-sided constructive feedback is only good for one of the sides. So we talked a little about a couple things and I'm glad we did that also - it gives me something to look at in the self-reflection mirror that I'll have time for as I fly back tomorrow!

This leave has been great and I'm really happy that it wrapped up the way it did. Sitting down with Dad and having a nice, long, open and honest talk turned out to be quite rewarding. I only hope it was as good an experience for him as it was for me!

-Storm

Double Identity

Every time I come home I realize just how different my two "lives" truly are. When I'm home, I can expect a very relaxed, comfortable, great-food, lose-track-of-time, civilian experience. And when I'm at the Academy I can often expect a rigid, stressful, micromanaged, eat-the-salad-because-nothing-else-tastes-quite-right, homework and responsibility intensive, military lifestyle. They are so far on either side of the spectrum from each other that I have begun to question if I am the same person on each side of the country.

Of course, I immediately jump to the answer of "Yes, you are the same person because being different would mean you are leading two different lives, and that is bad." Unfortunately, the closer I look the more I realize that perhaps I am not the same person at the Academy as I am at home. Indeed, I am for the most part a consistent person, I make no effort to hide the fact that I am a country boy from Texas who loves the outdoors, shooting, camping, and adventure in general when I am at school. In fact, I take ownership of it. And I don't try to hide the fact that I am a mechanical engineering student serving in the military when I am home. But macro personality traits aren't at all what I am worried about. That's where a closer examination is needed.

Now before I go on, it is important to realize that certain personality traits will flourish more in certain situations than others. Also, some situations require particular language usage and behaviors that would seem out of place in otherwise typical situations. My two-sided life is no exception. For example, when I'm home I will use Mr or Mrs, Sir or Ma'am for just about anyone older than me. In the military that just won't work. There may be a chief who is 50 years old with 30 years of service under his belt, but I still won't call him Sir (as much as I might instinctively try to) because not only would that be against military customs, there's a good chance he would be offended by it. Likewise, when I am performing Cadre duties (as I have been this summer) I will hardly ever smile. My "life is good" face there very similarly resembles a "I am having a terrible day" face here. Why? It imperative to not show emotion in certain aspects of the new recruits' training. My point in saying all this is that there will almost always be some situation-specific traits that will not be consistent across every environment one is subjected to. I have many of these and I realize their purpose so I won't mention them here because their irrelevance.

What bothers me are some things that shouldn't be different. At the Academy I tend to be completely upfront and transparent. I tell people what is on my mind, what is bothering me if something is, and I have no problem telling people the hard truth. In fact, many have come to expect that from me. Sadly, I find that at home I don't always feel as if I can be completely upfront with my parents. And it's not that I am trying to deceive them, by any means, but sometimes I feel like I must sugarcoat things and some things just aren't worth bringing up. I'm not saying that I should strive to always be like I am at the Academy, because some times there is a need for tact. Sometimes people need to hear things in a not-so-harsh way for them to actually listen. But what I do know is that I need to be consistent. I will always be learning but I must strive to follow the example that Christ led for us, and He was the same yesterday as He is today and will be tomorrow.

This and a few other problems that I have identified will definitely keep me busy for a while. The very last thing I need is to start forming a habit of leading two completely different lives. One day I'll graduate from the service and most likely start a family of my own - to lead a different life at work from that at home would be a tragic recipe for disaster.

So that's what has been on my mind lately; food for thought, thoughts for prayer. Strive to imitate Christ, and enjoy the rest of your summer!

-Storm