Eleven!!!!

The post title is a shout-out to all my pals in the Class of 2011 and their lame chant. :)

Let's start with the year recap:

1. I started off being scared to death to take command of 26th Company. It ended up being the best leadership experience I've had, and I was blessed with a sarcastic but helpful SEL in Chief, a reliable and competent foil in my XO Sean, and four totally different but great Platoon Commanders - Pat, Sam, Scott, and Jason. Not to mention a multi-talented First Sergeant Kyle. They were my anchor!

2. Who would have thought 26 would end up being Color Company? I had an amazing company. I'm proud of my plebes, actually all my underclass. They made my job so worthwhile. The fact that some of them would just open up to me really touched me. I learned a lot from them - about trusting people, understanding perspectives. And seeing my mom in her Color Girl gown was amazing. She got pampered - never does that for herself - and I was so happy to see that. She was so shocked!

3. Jason got to come to my commissioning and he and my grandfather pinned on my 2ndLt bars! I'm not a Midshipman anymore.

4. The Basic School happened. "TBS is tough, but I'm tougher." I tried telling myself that to get me through but I felt owned most of the time. But I got through.

5. I killed a few white whales. I did so much better on the E-course than I ever believed! 79 minutes! I never fell out of a hike. I struggled like crazy but I never fell out. And you know what? I survived a 12 miler that started after a week in the field at 0100, with an ILBE that weighed as much as I did, with both feet COVERED in blisters. I can navigate now. I was terrified of the Double O-course during Practicum class at school but then I wasn't all that nervous for it at TBS.

6. I survived a THIRD semester of Mungan - this time, instead of problem solving, it was thermal physics! And even though I struggled a TON during the semester and only was able to turn in homework with help from my classmates, I studied like crazy for the final and while some of the other guys FAILED it, I got a B!!!!!

7. I was on my company's Monster Mash and Worden Whirl teams! I had fun (Monster Mash was hard) but we did well!!!!! Love my company team wife-beater!

8. Awesome classes! Besides thermal physics, I took a class about Tolkien & Lewis, 20th Century Irish poetry...ooooh and "Space Science." The stupidest class ever. But I got to sit next to Kalea! And I wrote my Magic School Bus script which my teacher said wasn't creative enough. BUT I discovered new Irish poets whom I now love - Austin Clarke, Eavan Boland, Paul Muldoon, more Yeats, among others...including Seamus Heaney! I never thought I'd like modern poetry, but Heaney opened my eyes. I put so much work into my Capstone paper on him and I was so proud of it. One of my last hurrahs as a student.

9. I got selected to be a SIGINT Officer! My first choice!

10. I can't believe it but I maxed the CFT twice, and I ran a 287 PFT when I was exhausted, not in shape, and kinda injured. I even volunteered to carry the SAW on several occasions and by the time MOUT came along, we became friends. :)

11. Coley and I are friends again. Not best friends but I'm less vile now. Friends from a distance is better than none at all.

12. I went to Italy (Rome, Naples, Pompeii), the Vatican, and France (Paris and Belleau Wood) this year! Also to New Orleans for Mardi Gras again.

13. I graduated TBS and I drank out of the bulldog fountain at Belleau Wood. I'm a Marine now.

14. Aubrey was a great roommate. So grateful for her. And Shannon, of course.


I read a bunch of books this year...let's see if I can remember them all:

The Magician's Nephew, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, partial re-read of Screwtape Letters (ran out of time), Until We Have Faces, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra - all by C. S. Lewis

The Hobbit (again), The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and part of The Return of the King (ran out of time!), part of The Silmarillion, Letters from Father Christmas - all by J.R.R. Tolkien

Snow Falling on Cedars - David Gutterson

Ender's Game - O.S. Card

The Village - Bing West

Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident - Eoin Colfer

prolly others...

Music...now really into XM47 Alt Nation and the Silversun Pickups, among others. I think The Great Lake Swimmers are great to listen to as you fall asleep.

Movies still mean a lot to me. Now a huge Coen Brothers fan!

I looked back on my previous New Year's blog posts and I find my flaws and goals are similar? So have I improved at all in 2010? Have I changed? Have I gotten worse?

Not sure the answer to these questions but 2011 is finally here which means I survived a bunch of things I was scared of and now I have new things to be afraid of and to survive...