ammogirl

I have to be the biggest walking contradiction in the world.  I’m totally OCD when it comes to: 1. tidiness, 2. organization, and my favorite….3. lists!  I could make lists for everything!  Lists calm me when I am anxious (which is unnecessarily often), they get me pumped up (you know, like a list of what to pack for…mid tour or something), and they just give me something to do when my mind needs to be occupied (which is often).  However, after I’ve made all these lists and planned things out to the step, I have this horrible, HORRIBLE tendency to then put things off until the VERY LAST MINUTE.  And of course, I have an example:  Take, for instance, my getting ready for work in the morning routine…I know I can get fully showered and be out the door in 25 minutes, if I absolutely have to.  Unfortunately, most mornings, I uh..end up having to, because I hold off until that very second until I get going.  Can you be an Obsessive Compulsive procrastinator?  Hmm.  I guess I AM obsessive about things, TO INCLUDE procrastinating…and I am nothing, if not compulsive.  So, I guess I can just say I have OCP..D. 

Anyway.  The reason I bring up my morning routine is because it factors fairly heavily in the story I am about to tell you.  You see, most mornings, I, of course, wait until the very last minute before leaving my room for the mile walk into work, and I usually do this walk alone, because my coworkers say I walk too fast for the morning.  To which I like to say: Oh well, whinies, get a tissue, and move outta my way.  This morning, however, as I was watching the clock and thinking, "Gosh, I still have 3.5 more minutes before I have to put on my uniform!!  I should read a book!" I heard a faint knock at my door.  I knew immediately that it was Matt and Mark, (who came to fetch me for the walk even though I didn’t ask them to) and called out to them through my door "Did you come for me?"  Which, in itself, ha ha, right?  Because why the hell else would they be, oh, knocking on MY door?  But I digress.  They replied "Um, YES (dummy)", so I told them to be patient, and I would be out in 2 minutes.  Now, I said that while looking out my peep hole, and I must say, they looked quite irritated, (and Mark, I SAW that look on your face, and the eye roll you gave Matt) but they politely said, "okayyy!" and off they went, and I got dressed, and we left, and I could TELL they wanted to tell me something, and when we got outside, tell me something they did. 

So, it seems that after my declaration of "just 2 minutes!!" they said, collectively, "Right." and went down the hall to check things out.  They noticed a sign on the wall that said "game room" and thought "Neat!" and noticed the following things, upon turning on the light: tables, chairs, board games (indeed), and, standing behind the door, a guy.  Please, let that sink in….doo dooo doooooo dododododooooooo….okay…sunk in yet?  Standing behind the door, in a dark room, at 6:30 am, was a guy, just…standing, behind the door, in the dark.  Mark said to him through the glass "Oh!  You, uh…scared me!"  and with that, they spun around, turned off the light, and came back down the hall to wait outside my door.  And, while they were waiting, they did not notice this guy leaving, so fortunately, they did not disturb his standing-behind-the-door-in-a-dark-room fun, and he just went right back to it.

Now, I can only assume two things: 1. Sleepwalker or 2. FREAK.  In fact, I only WANT to assume: 1. Sleepwalker, because the other choice is…well, while it’s way funny, it’s also slightly weird.  And while you might think "sleepwalking?  BEHIND a door?" I can totally see it, because y’all, Lindsey?  My beautiful, talented, sweet baby girl?  She is a professional sleepwalker.  One time, John and I had just lay down in bed when SLAMMO!our door gets thrown open, the light goes on, and in walks Lindsey.  We just sat up and watched, bemusedly, while she went straight to my walk in closet, opened the door, went in, and shut the door behind her.  After a few seconds of trying not to laugh, I went in to get her to take her back to bed, and found her in the corner getting all kinds of ready to PEE.  She TOTALLY thought she was in the bathroom.  I just grabbed her and took her to the (real) bathroom, where she did her thing and then went right back to bed, and yes, in the morning, she did not remember a thing. That’s not the only thing she’s done either - so yeah, I can sympathize, if the guy was sleepwalking.  I’m just glad I have a really strong deadbolt.

I took my Korean mid-term today, and did fairly well, except for one thing: We were translating sentences from Korean to English, and I came across a word I didn’t know, and assumed was a name, due to it’s place in the sentence.  So, I dutifully wrote down: ‘Oolee reads a book at the library’, with Oolee being the Korean name, right?  Wrong.  SO wrong - oo-lee is actually what the Korean word for "we" sounds like phonetically.  The sentence was supposed to be ‘WE read books at the library’.  I’ll say it for you: ha ha ha! Also, HA HA! Ohhhh boy…I am dumb. See, if I had made a list, I would’ve been okay! Well, that and not procrastinating, about the whole studying thing…hmm.  I’ll have to keep that in mind for my Business Management final next Thursday…nah.  I have until AT LEAST Tuesday afternoon.

CIAO!

Y’all, I MEANT to post last night, I swear I did, but after an extremely long day of getting inspected by Mr. Jerky McIamajerkerton, and then 3 hours of review for the mid-term in Korean tomorrow, I was beat.  So I got some sleep instead, anddd….was probably better off for it.  And you too, because I would’ve just filled another entry about how much of a big fat jerk this inspector is.  We were lucky enough to have him all day today, as well - and I have never seen ten people look so ready to kill themselves before, in my life.  My Big Boss, even, was sending me emails that went something like this: "Treena.  YOU answer his questions now.  I’m TIRRREEDD.  Pleasssseeeeeeee." and: "That’s it.  I give up.  Just…whatever…PLEASE answer the next question."  For the record, all my emails went something like this: "NO."

The thing was, all three days, he would sit there, and tell us how horrible we were doing at our job, to the point we were ready to stab ourselves in the eye with a pencil just to save the world from having to deal with our horribleness, but during the daily outbrief, he would say, "AFK is doing great."  Which: FABULOUS!  I know my shop is awesome, and that we do great things, and it’s good to hear that come out of his mouth at the END of the day.  But, I mean, the stuff we would have to listen to during the day! For example, one of his observations was "These signatures on this document look like crap!  I would NEVER allow such sloppiness in MYYYYYY (perfect, awesome, rad, BEST SHOP EVER EVER EVER IN THE UNIVERSE) office."  And then he leaned over to his stupid notebook and scribbled away.  Sloppy signatures?  Wha???  What do you think he says to his doctor or the other 99% of the population that has less than perfect SIGNATURES?  Does anyone actually get offended by an untidy signature?  Because I don’t, for sure.  All I know is, there is certainly not a block in the AFK self-inspection checklist that reads "Are all signatures as perfect as the most perfect perfection ever?" and thusly, do not care about the quality of anyones penmanship.  This week has been like being in the worst verbally abusive relationship ever, and your dog just died, and you just poured milk in your cereal and took a big fatty bite…only to discover the milk expired five days ago.  Now, add in lots of bugs, and…poop.  THAT, my friends, is how the week is going.  Sighhh…it’s almost over though, and I tell you what, I am freaking G L A D.  We won’t know how we did overall until next week or something - I really don’t care, just as long as I never have to see that guy ever again, ever, in my whole entire life, and then afterwards, and after that.

In speech tonight, my group and I presented our discussion on Scientology, and I still think they are freaks, for realz. Scientologists, not my group.  Anyway, so does everyone in my speech class, now, and we didn’t even touch the controversial parts.  Well, except for the electro shock..thing..ajig.  The best part?  A-, that’s right.  Plus, we got to leave relatively early, which is the only thing saving you from two post-less days in a row, because this week, which is turning out to be not so much my favorite week in my life to this point, due to inspections and jerky inspectors, and midterms and graded speeches, has left me extremely exhausted.  And I know y’all care about my well being and much needed beauty sleep and will cut me a break if I miss a day..or two.  Or, uh, not care, or notice, which is fine too.

CIAO!

Today is an exciting day!  I am posting this from the base community center, where I am patiently waiting the arrival of my esteemed coworkers, so we can proceed to the chow hall for dinner.  And, would you like to know why I am at the community center?  WELL.  This is because the travel agency is located in this very building - as in the travel agency I just purchased my ticket from.  Yay!  Here I sit, ticket in hand, a post going up early, dinner soon to be in my belly - life is good.  Plus, it’s only 4:45 pm, which means….YES!  I got off early from work.  Okay, it was only because I had to pay for my ticket TODAY before 5pm, but still, I will not complain, EVER, about getting off work early.

So, the first day of the inspection: over.  It went well, I suppose.  The Master Sergeant inspecting my shop happens to be my technical school instructor, from 14 years ago, when I very first came in.  He looks the same - I doubt I do.  I like to think I am like wine, and improve with age, ha ha.  Anyway, I only remembered him because he has a very unique last name; he didn’t seem to recognize me, and I certainly was not going to bring it up.  I was one of hundreds of students he taught 14 years ago - he wouldn’t remember me.  Besides, he wouldn’t have deemed me high enough on the food chain to speak to anyway - he uh, hmm.  He, shall we say, is a bit chauvanistic.  Oh, sure, he only has one more stripe than I do - but please, I’m only a female, I CERTAINLY wouldn’t know anything.  Ugh.  Y’all, this is one of the things I hate, hate HATE about my career field - (disclaimer: this does not apply to EVERY GUY in AMMO, and certainly none of the ones that read this) anyway - I hate that there are still so many men out there that think that either women don’t belong in our career field, or, just in the military, period.  It’s frustrating, and I hate dealing with it.  The bad thing is most men will flat out deny that there is still discrimination occuring within our career field - it’s a losing battle.  It’s just this - to some people, quite frankly, the very fact that I don’t piss standing up, and don’t have any balls to scratch - not to mention "Man, that chick last night had really nice tits" would sound a little strange coming from me - makes me unworthy, unknowledgable, unmotivated, incompetent and sneaky, besides.  The "sneaky" part comes using my feminine wiles to get my way, win awards, make rank.  Oh, you didn’t know that’s how I won my awards and got my stripes?  It sure wasn’t by busting my ass on AND off work or studying for two months straight - silliness!  All I had to do was look through my eyelashes at just the right person, and make sure when I bent over to pick up that paper all the important eyes were on me, and VIOLA!  All my achievements - handed to me on a silver platter. 

It’s disgusting to me that after all the progress we swear to have made in this country, we have really made none.  It pisses me off that even BEFORE I GOT HERE in Korea, people were not saying about me "Yeah, I heard this Treena’s a really great troop - good stuff" but "Yeah, I heard she has a really nice rack." I hate that, as a female in my career field, that I know the VERY FIRST thing that will happen upon my arrival (and, honestly, I’m not being egotistic - this isn’t about just me, but all AMMO females in general) is the word will go out through the grapevine: Fat or thin? Ugly or hot? Bitch or nice? Married? Single? Do you think she’ll sleep with me anyway?  I hate that when a male sergeant has a problem, he can call me on the phone and tell me whatever he wants, true, valid, unfounded or not - he’s just voicing his concerns, right?  But if I get on the phone and say something, that is backed up by research, and printouts, and notes, because I have been working with these type of people for a lonnnng time, and I have learned my lesson several times over, and that lesson is CYA, EVERYTIME -  I’m just bitching.  "Calm down, Treena."  Grrrrr…..

Why am I so mad about this, if I have dealt with it so long?  Because after awhile, the men I work with, even if they are of the "little lady, you should be home wearing a bikini and cooking my dinner" genre, have gotten so used to my foot stomping and persistence that they have accepted me for what I am: a Technical Sergeant in the United States Air Force.  I hate my job, certainly, but I do it well, because I am a perfectionist, and I do not like to fail - and have gotten used to having my accomplishments speak for me, not my gender.  But when assholes like this inspector today, who is a "leader" in the Air Force, and holds in his hands the minds of impressionable 19 year old boys fresh in the military, looking for that "cool dude" to model themselves after; when this man, who should absolutely know better, either dismisses what I’m saying or simply interrupts me to get the very same information from people that do not know as much as I do - JUST BECAUSE I AM A WOMAN - it snaps me back to reality and pisses my shit right off.

Whew.  I believe the keyboard is smoking now.  Anyway, he was a jerk to my friends, too, and I don’t like that.  I’m a mother lion, when it comes to people that work for me (right, Jen?) and no, I don’t take to assholes, not one bit.

CIAO!