Law and Order: Criminal Intent, OR, Where Did Saturday Go?
Dear Law and Order,
Please return my four hours of time that I unknowingly invested...I turned on the TV today for some reason, I cannot remember why exactly, right before I logged into blogger and facebook and whatever else I do when I'm bored, and I caught the setup for an episode and saw the victim... Well, approximately 55 minutes later I was thinking how great it was and then realized that there were going to be another 3-4 episodes following the first. I could have seen it coming but why did I do nothing to stop it from happening? I was so young and had so much potential! I just walked right into the trap.
It's not really that big a deal, honestly.
Lately the topics of job and future are ever before me... You know I finished my job in Korea on August 24th? It's been a few months already and I wasn't really planning on being unemployed so long but it has happened. I was hoping to come home and swiftly find myself a job speaking Spanish, since I'm good at speaking it, of course... and, well, start making some money and buy a car and all of that while we're waiting for the whole military thing to pan out. They want to see the green card before I can start the waiting process for boot camp. Very unfortunate for us since we would love to start this soon! God knows it will all turn out perfectly, don't let me convince you otherwise, but for the meantime I can only hope that it will be quick. I'm starting to lose some of my motivation since it is all very unpredictable and it's hard to keep up all the excitement for an eternity. I keep closing my eyes and imagining that we're opening the mailbox and there it is: the letter from USCIS that tells us what to do next. Shortly after, of course, we'll be going to get fingerprints and pictures and then in the blink of an eye we'll notice it has arrived in the mail. This means we can start the waiting with the military, of course. The whole thing sounds relatively pain-free, excepting the boot camp, which is going to be a growing experience in many ways. I'm not really one to comply and follow orders silently, which is something that surprises me about this choice but it has a ring about it... It has a ring that makes it sound like it was never my idea at all. It's not too surprising though, considering the living in Chile and later going to South Korea, and all the things I have done in between.
It's as crazy as the things I have done to date and that's what makes me feel a bit more calm. Just when I was getting predictable I have thrown everyone a curve ball, including myself. So I guess it's safe to say that it was never my idea at all. I'll call it divine inspiration. You can call it something else, but I will relate a few more details that make it all a bit more exciting and lend it what I would like to call credibility. Of course, what's necessary for me to consider it divine and for you, dear reader, are probably as different as our personalities, and we can be grateful that we're as different as we are. I don't think I could possibly bear people with as much energy as I have and what I had only a few years ago. I sometimes get upset with even my own family for being so averted to slowing down but I was the extreme. How could even my best of friends bear me?
...Apple Cider break...
Two-hours later...Well, I guess sometime after we came back from our visit to the states in December, 2009, we had this epiphany that we wanted to go to Hawai'i and we were looking for ways, or excuses rather, to go there. Somehow I got interested in the Air Force and started reading a bit about what they had to offer and read about the Crypto Linguist job. There was a lot of wrestling about how and when and why and money and things like that...Of course, that's to be expected. Any serious decision, regardless of what I have done in the past, needs to be wrestled with, of course. Some time after I proposed the idea to Olivia and she mentioned that she didn't think it was a bad idea at all and also to my mother, whom I always talk to about anything important--she's sort of my litmus test for major decisions... It turns out that Olivia's mother had some vision or dream years ago about her daughter marrying a man in uniform and/or a teacher and I only realized this after I had proposed the idea and some more time had passed. It was like this little detail that was somehow overlooked but yet I had been a teacher for the past two years, making me a teacher by trade, not necessarily by profession, and an aspiring linguist for the military. The Air Force was the logical choice since it seems a bit more like me--more brains, less brawn. I corresponded with them for ages and they gave good responses but not very many guarantees and told me that I must be willing to go into any field essentially to join. I really didn't like that part since I'm not 18. I'm enlisting for God's sake, and only for this position, not to be a deck scrubber! I'm 26 years old!
Fast forward--We're in America, trying to talk with the Air Force, and I had even tried to talk with the Army a bit while I was in Korea and made some efforts to contact some people but the Army was not really right... The Air Force basically told me we were never going to get in and even if we did I would have to do Special Forces or get on the list. Someone at my father's small group, ex-Marines suggested the Navy and I opposed it vehemently. After several days of struggling with it, talking, reading tons of stuff on the internet, praying, I decided to call up the Navy and talk to them and ask a few questions. You know what? It was like a completely different response. Sure, you know, if you get the scores for the job I feel strongly you can get the job... That was the response. The Air Force was all dead ends and I will understand it all better later, I'm sure, but for now I can only keep moving forward in the direction that seems best. The Navy made great strides and leaps to get me in the office, get me to take the test--in Wilmington, and later set me up to take only the DLAB, which is what was required of me to assess my skills to see if I could learn languages for this job. I did well on the ASVAB, and passed the DLAB. I felt like I would do very well on the DLAB--I speak Spanish well and can manage fairly well in Korean for a 위국인, or foreigner, and didn't feel like it would be anything impossible. Tough test. That's all I will tell you. I was surprised and since there really aren't many study guides and it changes so often there need not be anything done in terms of studying before. It's like vocab for major tests (SAT/GRE), you either know the words or you don't--there's no use memorizing crap the night before.
... I guess this is where I say that I have plans to join the Navy as a CTI guy, Linguist, you know, and it's all on hold, even though I am qualified... We are still waiting...waiting...waiting... But it's bedtime and I haven't the patience or energy to write more.
Please return my four hours of time that I unknowingly invested...I turned on the TV today for some reason, I cannot remember why exactly, right before I logged into blogger and facebook and whatever else I do when I'm bored, and I caught the setup for an episode and saw the victim... Well, approximately 55 minutes later I was thinking how great it was and then realized that there were going to be another 3-4 episodes following the first. I could have seen it coming but why did I do nothing to stop it from happening? I was so young and had so much potential! I just walked right into the trap.
It's not really that big a deal, honestly.
Lately the topics of job and future are ever before me... You know I finished my job in Korea on August 24th? It's been a few months already and I wasn't really planning on being unemployed so long but it has happened. I was hoping to come home and swiftly find myself a job speaking Spanish, since I'm good at speaking it, of course... and, well, start making some money and buy a car and all of that while we're waiting for the whole military thing to pan out. They want to see the green card before I can start the waiting process for boot camp. Very unfortunate for us since we would love to start this soon! God knows it will all turn out perfectly, don't let me convince you otherwise, but for the meantime I can only hope that it will be quick. I'm starting to lose some of my motivation since it is all very unpredictable and it's hard to keep up all the excitement for an eternity. I keep closing my eyes and imagining that we're opening the mailbox and there it is: the letter from USCIS that tells us what to do next. Shortly after, of course, we'll be going to get fingerprints and pictures and then in the blink of an eye we'll notice it has arrived in the mail. This means we can start the waiting with the military, of course. The whole thing sounds relatively pain-free, excepting the boot camp, which is going to be a growing experience in many ways. I'm not really one to comply and follow orders silently, which is something that surprises me about this choice but it has a ring about it... It has a ring that makes it sound like it was never my idea at all. It's not too surprising though, considering the living in Chile and later going to South Korea, and all the things I have done in between.
It's as crazy as the things I have done to date and that's what makes me feel a bit more calm. Just when I was getting predictable I have thrown everyone a curve ball, including myself. So I guess it's safe to say that it was never my idea at all. I'll call it divine inspiration. You can call it something else, but I will relate a few more details that make it all a bit more exciting and lend it what I would like to call credibility. Of course, what's necessary for me to consider it divine and for you, dear reader, are probably as different as our personalities, and we can be grateful that we're as different as we are. I don't think I could possibly bear people with as much energy as I have and what I had only a few years ago. I sometimes get upset with even my own family for being so averted to slowing down but I was the extreme. How could even my best of friends bear me?
...Apple Cider break...
Two-hours later...Well, I guess sometime after we came back from our visit to the states in December, 2009, we had this epiphany that we wanted to go to Hawai'i and we were looking for ways, or excuses rather, to go there. Somehow I got interested in the Air Force and started reading a bit about what they had to offer and read about the Crypto Linguist job. There was a lot of wrestling about how and when and why and money and things like that...Of course, that's to be expected. Any serious decision, regardless of what I have done in the past, needs to be wrestled with, of course. Some time after I proposed the idea to Olivia and she mentioned that she didn't think it was a bad idea at all and also to my mother, whom I always talk to about anything important--she's sort of my litmus test for major decisions... It turns out that Olivia's mother had some vision or dream years ago about her daughter marrying a man in uniform and/or a teacher and I only realized this after I had proposed the idea and some more time had passed. It was like this little detail that was somehow overlooked but yet I had been a teacher for the past two years, making me a teacher by trade, not necessarily by profession, and an aspiring linguist for the military. The Air Force was the logical choice since it seems a bit more like me--more brains, less brawn. I corresponded with them for ages and they gave good responses but not very many guarantees and told me that I must be willing to go into any field essentially to join. I really didn't like that part since I'm not 18. I'm enlisting for God's sake, and only for this position, not to be a deck scrubber! I'm 26 years old!
Fast forward--We're in America, trying to talk with the Air Force, and I had even tried to talk with the Army a bit while I was in Korea and made some efforts to contact some people but the Army was not really right... The Air Force basically told me we were never going to get in and even if we did I would have to do Special Forces or get on the list. Someone at my father's small group, ex-Marines suggested the Navy and I opposed it vehemently. After several days of struggling with it, talking, reading tons of stuff on the internet, praying, I decided to call up the Navy and talk to them and ask a few questions. You know what? It was like a completely different response. Sure, you know, if you get the scores for the job I feel strongly you can get the job... That was the response. The Air Force was all dead ends and I will understand it all better later, I'm sure, but for now I can only keep moving forward in the direction that seems best. The Navy made great strides and leaps to get me in the office, get me to take the test--in Wilmington, and later set me up to take only the DLAB, which is what was required of me to assess my skills to see if I could learn languages for this job. I did well on the ASVAB, and passed the DLAB. I felt like I would do very well on the DLAB--I speak Spanish well and can manage fairly well in Korean for a 위국인, or foreigner, and didn't feel like it would be anything impossible. Tough test. That's all I will tell you. I was surprised and since there really aren't many study guides and it changes so often there need not be anything done in terms of studying before. It's like vocab for major tests (SAT/GRE), you either know the words or you don't--there's no use memorizing crap the night before.
... I guess this is where I say that I have plans to join the Navy as a CTI guy, Linguist, you know, and it's all on hold, even though I am qualified... We are still waiting...waiting...waiting... But it's bedtime and I haven't the patience or energy to write more.
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