The Power of Skype & A Bachelor's Degree

It's 11:50PM and I have just know finished putting away clothes, doing my laundry, organizing my school work for this week. I figured I'd take a break and blog. I had a very uneventful Fall Break--but I like it that way. I just relaxed at home, went to cousins' football games, worked on my upcoming assignments. The highlight of my four-day weekend was finally getting to Skype my husband! We are just over halfway through the deployment, and this is the first time we've ever used Skype. Partly because the internet at his FOB sucks, partly because he doesn't have his own webcam to bring with him to the MWR, and partly because he hates Skype. Well, he's been at a different location for a few days and the computers there have webcams. So, yesterday he suggested we Skype. For some reason, his webcam wasn't working, so I couldn't see him, but he could see me! That was exciting enough for me. This is a horrible feeling, but I think a lot of wives feel this way: while your husband is gone, he starts to feel like a ghost. Even though you can see his name and a green dot on FB chat or hear his voice on the other line, you can't see him or touch him, and so it's this weird feeling that it's not really him. The best way I can explain it is a ghost, but I'm sure that's not appropriate considering the possibilities. My husband and I have talked about this, and he says that he feels the same thing sometimes. So, even though I couldn't see him, for him to be able to see me, and for me to see him type "You're beautiful" and know that he's saying that because he can actually see it, it just feels amazing. He told me that his FOB just got webcams and better internet connection at their MWR--an upgrade more or less--and so we should be able to Skype more frequently now when he's not outside the wire. This is the best news I got all weekend! The only bad part is now I can't look like a depressed bum every day because I never know when that Skype call will come through. I like to look good for my husband, no matter how many years we're married!

The CS/BAH battle continued this weekend. I finally got the EFMP approval on my DA5888. The dummies put his duty station as Iraq. Um, hello? Did I not just tell you Afghanistan? His S1 said we should still be able to process it though because his orders will say Afghanistan and, sort of, override that block on the form. Once again, the S1 is telling me we likely won't get BAH. Because I don't rent a house flat out from a renter, it has screwed things up. I have an apartment that I pay for, but it's through my university and it's paid by semester. So, it's not a typical lease like the Army is used to. So, even though I pay what comes to be approximately $1,000 a month for this apartment, I won't get BAH because it's not a typical lease. He also told me that renting a room in a relative's house doesn't count, either. So I guess that ruins my next semester's plans. At this point, I'm 99.9% sure we will not be getting BAH in any shape or form until Dave gets back to the island and rents our condo there. That really sucks because that was going to be our savings for our new car and for our first home when we ETS. Looks like we will be mega-budgeting for the next year. It kind of irritates me because over the course of the last year, me being full time at a large 4-year university seems to be a disadvantage in the Army. It's like they expect Army Wives to be stay-at-home moms, and anyone different, they don't make an effort to accommodate. I feel like I'm being screwed over because I've chosen a college education. Not that there is anything wrong with a woman who chooses to be a stay-at-home mom--I kind of prefer that when there's children involved. However, seeing as we don't have kids yet, I want my undergrad degree done. That has involved me not moving to Hawaii and, therefore, being a full-time, on-campus student in Virginia. The way I'm trying to look at it is this: BAH or no BAH, in the long run, this degree is going to pay off. If I don't look at it like that, I want to punch holes through walls...