18 hours and 30 minutes

...that is until my plane takes off from RIC! I can't believe it's finally here. After those 18 hours and 30 minutes have passed, my flight will be soaring off the runway, on its way to Hawaii. It doesn't even seem real that I'm about to see my husband for the first time since September 8th. My stomach is doing flips just thinking about it. Even though I've flown to Hawaii and back once before, flying is always a crazy experience. It never is the same twice...different planes, different passengers, different airports, etc. I think what I'm most nervous about it my shirt getting wrinkled, my hair getting flat, and my make-up wearing off in the 18 hours it takes to get there. I just want to look perfect! I'm wearing a dark gray tank top that has silk sleeves with a cut-out in the back (my favorite), skinny jeans, and black t-strap sandals. Simple, comfortable, but still stylish. I had to find a balance between Virginia weather and Hawaii weather, that way when I'm in Virginia at 5 AM and it's still under 50 degrees, I can still be comfortable then and when I get to Hawaii with 80 degrees temps. I'm taking the giant suitcase as checked-in, then a carry on weekender bag and my purse. I have forgotten all of the TSA requirements seeing as the last time I flew there was December 2010, so I'll have to look all those up tonight. I know about the 3.4 liquid oz. thing with the carry on, but I forget all the rest. I will be so upset if they make me throw away my eyebrow scissors because they're a weapon! I'm so excited to get there and see our home. He's been living there for about a week now, but he hasn't put up all the decorations, etc. so it's not quite complete yet. It takes a wife :) And almost as much as I miss my husband, I miss my car! I'm just so ready to feel that relief, relief in knowing that he'll never deploy again, that we never have to go months at a time without seeing each other again, that we can just be normal. I'll be there for two weeks, then I come back here to finish my last two weeks of student teaching. Then, I finally take my one way ticket out there :) Oddly enough, I'm sad about leaving my students. One girl this morning told me I was "the prettiest white girl" she had ever seen. Umm...thanks? You just have to love them. Even if they're smoking weed in the bathroom, texting in class, not doing work...they provide an extreme amount of entertainment every day. I'm really furious with one student right now. He never, and I mean never, comes to class, and when he does, he just sits there. There's no way in the world he's going to graduate in a few months with the F that he has in the gradebook right now. And today, he got suspended for truancy, so he sat here and did nothing all class because he said "it wouldn't matter." I tried to make him realize that today's activity was a grade and so he could at least improve his F by a few points; he didn't care. Then, when I was returning graded work, as soon as I laid his down on his desk, he balled it up--right in front of me--and threw it in the trash. I guess I should be angry, but really I'm sad. It really hurts as an educator to know that some kids just really don't care, and it's sad to think about where they're going to end up after this school year when they don't graduate. Either back in 12th grade, or--most likely--the streets. But sometimes, there really is only so much you can do. I have a few students who are much like this, although most of them have kicked it into high gear now and are like the perfect students, in hopes that they can turn their F's into C's in two months. The chances are slim, but if they're putting in the effort, I'm willing to work with them. Better late than never. Anyways, just an update on today--the most exciting day evvveerr. I've already decided that tomorrow, when we finally see each other and hug and kiss, it will be even better than our wedding day. Well, my students are about to come back from their lunch, so I must go. Adios!

Vent Session

Today is mine and David's first wedding anniversary, and here I am, in my bedroom in my parents' house, already changed into pajamas after work. What is supposed to be an amazing day filled with dates and flowers and things has been a crappy day.

First, and most obvious, my husband and I are spending our first anniversary almost 10,000 miles apart. So, our anniversary has just felt like any other day. I woke up at 5:45, got to work at 7:00, left work at 2:35, and came home. I've been here since. I guess you could say that the best anniversary present I could ask for I am receiving. My husband has less than a week left in this year-long deployment. These last few days have been the longest, though. They feel like they're crawling. It doesn't help that only days away from when he is signed up to leave, we still aren't sure exactly when that will be. It could be this day, could be the next. I'm just so ready for him to be back in the U.S. and safe. It's driving me nuts because it's dragging out! We've been dating for two years, and married for one, and we've spent three months of those two years actually together. Those three months were spent sleeping in our teenage bedrooms in our parent's home, running back and forth all over to see all kinds of people. We have yet to have the chance to be a normal, married couple. We don't know what it's like to wake up, eat breakfast, head to work, and go back to bed that night, and wake up and do it all over again. We don't know what it's like to clean on the weekends, or cook dinner at night, or lay on our couch and watch movies. This homecoming doesn't just mean he's home safe, but it means we get to start our lives together, and I couldn't be more anxious and excited about it.

Also, I am absolutely fed up with fake, surface-level people. I'm so tired of people saying meaningless things, or trying to prove things with baseless words because their actions prove otherwise. I'm tired of people just saying things to make them look better. After you say the same things over and over again, they become even more meaningless than before. My husband and I are both just fed up with these people--and there are multiple. I guess that's what comes with being in a deployment, though. People who really don't care, and never wanted to care, go overboard with caring words because he's a soldier and I'm on the home front and it makes them feel like a good person. I can't wait for us to be out of the Army, living back near our friends and families, living a normal life--just to see how many people still say all of their "I'm so happy for you" "You too are so great" and "I miss you, I love you." To see how many people bother to call us or visit when we live 15 minutes away. All the words in the world mean nothing if you don't prove them.

So needless to say, my anniversary day was just filled with me being angry and irritated. Thankfully, tomorrow is a new day, and one day closer.

The Good and The Bad.

Well today has been a roller coaster, and I am currently at the bottom of a hill, hoping to start climbing again eventually. This morning started off great. My husband has been a PFC since AIT, and not because he didn't deserve to be promoted. Only 8 months into his first duty stations, he got deployed. Anyone who knows anything about being a 13F knows how deployments work with them. They are managed through Headquarters and sort of, contracted out to the platoons. While all of the infantry guys can be promoted through their platoons, the 13F's have to be promoted through Headquarters still. And of course Headquarters deals with eight million things at once, so they took forever to get his paperwork done. That and they were on E4 overload. So finally today, my husband got his E4. And he says that they're going to send him to the board for E5 in July, so he could be an E5 for a year before we ETS. So that's my good news. It's been a long time coming, and they told him he'd have it months ago, so we were so happy to finally get the news.

The bad news is just horrible news. Well, I guess there's nothing we can do about it, but I'm still pretty upset about it. Yesterday my husband told me that he's leaving a day later. I was kinda irritated with that, but expected it and wasn't too upset because it was just a day, which wouldn't be much in the scheme of a year. However, tonight he told me they have now added another five days onto that. All because the new unit coming in doesn't have their crap together like they were supposed to and are getting there late. Thanks a lot whoever you are. So, it looks like he'll be getting to Hawaii only like 4 days before me, instead of a week and half like before. So I'm just super bummed out about that. It pretty much ruined how well the day was going. I guess I can only try to find the positive in it, and that's that he won't have to wait as long by himself and that we'll get to do more of the house unpacking and setting up together. Or like I told him today, I'd be able to unpack everything now so that he can find the PS3 and play COD while I work...

In the Teens.

No, not the temperature. No, not age. Yep, the countdown! We are in the teens, and I can hardly believe it. Different than we had planned, I won't be at the Homecoming Ceremony for his chalk, which kind of stinks, but because we are sacrificing that special time together, we will get an additional seven days together, thanks to my Spring Break as a teacher. So we both know it's worth it. My schedule is absolutely nuts for the next three months. It looks something like this:

March 31st - April 14: Hawaii

April 15 - April 28: Virginia

April 28 - May 10: Hawaii

May 11 - June 1: Virginia

June 1: Back to Hawaii until Christmas

Yes, insanity. I'm never going to catch up to a time zone until like...July. When I was in Hawaii last winter and came back to Virginia, it took me a good two weeks to feel normal again. I had some serious jet lag, but I'm hoping now that I've experienced that 16 hour (sometimes a little more or less) flight, it won't hit me as hard. I've been doing all kinds of preparation for his homecoming. Have to get his phone service reinstated, electricity and internet turned on in our place, different things ordered, car keys and paperwork shipped, and so on.

This is essentially my last week teaching in my first placement. I have to finish this week, and then I have one last week. However, my final week at MMS will be SOL review and testing Monday through Wednesday and movie days on Thursday and Friday as a break for the brain-fried kids. So that will be an easy, effortless week. Then, I'm off to my next placement, which I'm quite honestly dreading. It's 12th grade, which I've done before. They are nightmares of students, especially in the Spring when they're burned out and the work they do has no purpose because they've already passed final exams and SOL's and everything else they need to do to graduate. And I can't exactly tell them that what they're doing at the end of their senior year is important--because nine times out of ten, it isn't. Especially this school--an urban one with one of the highest drop-out rates in the state. They're higher education rate is next to none, which means research papers are pointless, which about all seniors could do. The only thing that would be useful to them is career preparation: resumes, interviewing, career reflections, formal versus informal speech, writing, and dress, and so forth. So I'm thinking in the five weeks I am there, I'm going to do a unit on just that: "Real World Readiness." We'll see how it goes!

My graduation gown, hood, and medals are hanging up on my closet door, just waiting for May 12th to roll around. David and I were talking this morning, and we decided we aren't going to know what to do with ourselves when there's no more deployment and no more schooling. But then we realized the answer was pretty simple: HAVE FUN!

Dragging On.

I'm sure this is typical of any military wife in the home-stretch of a deployment, but O-M-G, could time be moving any slower!? I'm having to look at the number of days, not the months/weeks. Even though my husband will be home before (so this is technically not a violation of OPSEC), there are FORTY EIGHT days until I see his handsome face for the first time since early September! It's just dragging out for both of us. His days there are relatively quiet now, which, while a good thing as far as getting rest goes, definitely makes the days go by slower too. You would think with teaching full time, my days would be flying, but I think I feel like they're flying, then I look at my calendar and it's been shorter than I thought, then that's just discouraging. David has decided not to look at the date on his phone anymore to help the days go by faster. I just wish I could do that, too!

I sent our car off to Hawaii this past Friday. The process was almost easy. Besides not getting very good directions on what paperwork to bring, we ran into a few roadblocks. I knew I had to have 1/4 tank of gas or less, so I only brought it up to 1/2 tank before we left for an hour and 45 min. trip to Portsmouth. My 80 minute commute to and from work each day uses about a 1/4 tank, so I figured I would be fine. I didn't consider that I'd be driving highway miles east (downhill) towards sea level. So, I got to Portsmouth and had to go to an auto shop to have my gas siphoned from my vehicle to my aunt's. That took 45 minutes. Then, I got to the POV shipment place and began my paperwork (the wait wasn't long at 10am). I'm half-way through when the woman goes to look for my registration in the stack of paperwork I brought her when she says, "I don't see your registration." And I'm like "Well, I know I brought it. It was attached to the insurance card copies (which I didn't need), which are right here. So it must have fallen out if it's not here." She double checks by flipping through all my paperwork to not find it again. So, then I'm driving 20 minutes to go to the nearest DMV when I decide to check my paperwork stack behind her. The lady stapled my registration to the back of our orders, so of course she passed over them! So then, we turned around and drove BACK to the POV shipment place, and I completed the process, including an inspection where I found out ON THE WAY THERE (because it wasn't there before), a rock hit my front bumper and chipped the paint! Thankfully, it's small--a little smaller than a dime. Then we went to Applebee's in Suffolk on the way home and had the worst service ever, but that's another story for another time.

As far as the deployment goes, my husband is featured in a 25 minute long documentary on Al Jazeera. It can be found here: The Winter War. It's a really intriguing video. It shows the 18-day mission my husband went on during Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Day, it shows the OP taking incoming and then returning the favor--but I'd like to think a little more successfully! Here's a screen shot of him (front-right) in the video:

So handsome <3

This video is by the same filmmaker that made the 25 minute video, but this is of Checkpoint 2.5, where my husband has spent about half of his deployment in 3-4 day trips every week.

So that's about it. Other interesting tidbits: I have my first scrimmage in just six days. I'm nervous! Student-teaching is going great. My workout life is pretty excellent. I haven't lost any weight, but I'm looking much better. I really don't care about the number though. I can tell a huge difference in my muscle tone. I "deleted" Facebook in that I came to a compromise with my Mom and Aunt and kept Facebook, but deleted everyone who was not a blood relative. Their argument is that they want to see pictures and stuff from Hawaii, and that Facebook is easier than pulling up my blog. So now, my Facebook exists for the sole purpose of filling in my family on life in Hawaii. I really just wanted to delete it, but this way, everyone is happy--at least as close to it as possible. I'll be happy when we move back home and I delete the whole dang thing.

But anywho, off to watching Cupcake Wars and writing my reflection for last week's student-teaching!

The Whirlwind I Call Life.

It's been quite a while since I've had time to blog, and I still technically don't have time. I just figured I'd take a break from life for a second. So this is where I'm at on this twenty-sixth day of January.

I'm now almost done with my second week of student teaching, and I'm really enjoying it. I was heavily considering switching from English to guidance counseling, but that was before I experienced middle school. The kids that everyone thinks are the worst are the best! I adore middle school, and I think I'll stick around in the English world a little bit longer. I have 6th and 8th grade gifted students, and I really enjoy creating lessons for them because I can dig into those deeper concepts and higher-level thinking skills. I'm going to look into getting my gifted certification, too. It's only 12-15 credit hours (4 classes and usually a practicum experience). I have a great cooperating teacher which helps, too. She's very organized and innovative. The planning is a lot of work because of the particular county I'm teaching in. I have gifted curriculum, IB curriculum, AYP school improvement plan curriculum, and technology strand curriculum, all to fit into each unit.

In my three eighth grade classes, we are reading Linda Sue Park's A Long Walk to Water. It's the true story of Salva Dut, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, and Nya, a girl that lives in Southern Sudan now.

They will be then using Photo Story 3 to write persuasive photo essays that bring awareness to the various issues in the novel.

For sixth grade, we're doing an "alphabiography", where they'll be picking something about them that starts with every letter of the alphabet, and they'll have to write a poem (in a specified form) for each letter. I'm also going to do a mini-lesson on phonetics and we're going to learn how to write the Chinese alphabet. They'll use their new calligraphy skills to create the alphabet dividers for their poetry alphabiographies.

So yeah, that's school right now.

My neck issues are back, so I went back to the doctor--a different doctor. I found out the real reason for my pain. I have an extra rib, formally known as a "cervical rib." So I'll be doing a lot of physical therapy, and if that doesn't work, the only other option is surgery to remove the rib.

The best news in my life right now is that we are SO stinkin' close to the end of this deployment. I ship our HHG on February 3rd and our car on February 10th, and then it's just the waiting game! My plane ticket is ordered for a two-week visit right around when he gets home. Then I have to come back home and finish student teaching for two weeks, then I'll be flying out ONE WAY! I've waited for that for so long!

So that's the update. The days are flying by so fast that I feel like I'm in the middle of a hurricane. But it's a good hurricane if there is such a thing, because it's all moving towards the life that my husband and I have waited so long for!

New Year

Well, considering I have a blog, and blogs are about reflection and sharing thoughts and ideas, I'm somewhat required to write a post about 2011 and 2012 this New Years.

My husband playing with fireworks last New Years in Hawaii

2011

This past year has been the craziest year of my life, by a long shot. I spent New Years 2011 in Hawaii with my husband (then, fiance) and two friends. In Hawaii, everyone shoots off fireworks at midnight--and I mean everyone. At 12:00, the entire island was in a haze of colored smoke as I kissed my husband with our first New Years kiss of many. Then I watched my husband light off firecrackers and run from them as they exploded. He has some sick obsession with fireworks. I guess it's a man thing. In just one week of 2011, I married the most amazing guy on Earth, and sent him off to Afghanistan, and life has never been quite the same since then. Like with any deployment, life has been full of ups and downs. Our first few months were rough as we fought to get used to the new lifestyle: one phone call a week (at first), the phone saying "You have 60 seconds" and having to rush to say our goodbyes, having to show affection with simply words on a phone line, having to get through disagreements on just a phone line (it's much easier to say things you don't mean, people), not understanding what one another are going through. After the first month or two, we figured things out, and we've been growing and pushing through ever since. I learned how to be stronger than I ever knew possible. When he couldn't be there to talk me through a rough day, I had to get through it on my own. When we bought our first car and did financial paperwork, I had to learn how to do it on my own. Although I've gotten a few wrinkles (hopefully just figuratively), I've grown so much over the last year. Even though I've been past 18, I actually turned into an adult. We had our R&R in August and September, and it was nice to be married and together and normal, without all the wedding craziness of his previous leave. Now, with only a few months left in the deployment, we're starting to get those exciting jitters that come with the realization that it's almost over. This new year is the year that we've been waiting for since May of 2010, and we're so excited to see what it has in store.

2012

Well now that 2012 has begun, it's really sinking in that in a few short months, my husband will be home and we will be starting our new life together. We've never been able to just be a normal couple. We started our relationship during basic training, and have been pushed and pulled by the Army ever since. We've spent 3 months in each other's presence in the last two years, and those months were spent bouncing back and forth between all different family members and places on two week leave periods. We have yet to walk into our own home and plop down on the couch and just relax and talk about our day, without anywhere to go, or anyone to see. It will be so nice to just experience a normal day as a normal, married couple. We're excited to also be not so normal in that we'll be leaving on a vacation island with so many adventurous things to do. I can't wait to go hiking, run on the beach, go to Sea Life Park, and do all of the awesome things in Hawaii together. This also means that I can back to being the athlete that I used to be. While I probably won't find any soccer teams to play on, I'll be able to run and work out every day without limits, and I cannot wait for that! I also graduate with my Bachelor's of Arts in English this year, a degree I've been working on since I graduated high school. If all goes as planned, I'll be graduating with Honors, too. College was always part of my plan, and I always knew I'd graduate and do fine, but back then, I never expected to be dealing with a deployment while trying to finish my degree. College was a peace of cake...until he left. Now, what seemed like no big deal feels like a huge accomplishment. There were many days when I though I wasn't going to make it to graduation because it was too hard to handle everything. In just the first few months of 2012, there will be my birthday, our one-year wedding anniversary, his homecoming, my graduation, and moving to Hawaii. I couldn't be more excited for what is going to be the best year of our lives--at least until 2013 :)