Thinking...

Well today is the fifth day out eight days of twelve hour watches, the good news is that its the weekend and it'll be relativily slow. I'm just looking forward to Tuesday night and going out with my Italian friends for some well earned relaxation

In other news, there was an Italian trucker stirke earlier this weekend, meaning all things moved on wheels, which is pretty much everything in Italy, was not available. Produce, gas, mail, meats, medicine, it was gone! I moved on base because I live a good ways away from where I work and didn't want to run the risk of running out of gas on the highway, and there were also reports of violence and that's never fun. The strike is over now but I'm still in the hotel on base because I'm still saving on gas money and I already paid up through Sunday night.

Other than that I've just had a lot on my mind lately. Past relationships, work stuff I've got going right now, plans for the future. Or maybe the lack thereof! I've been reevaluating my situation in life, and I keep coming back to the fact I have no real direction or major plans for the future. I always thought I had everything worked out, and for the most part I can deal with whatever comes my way. But I try thinking about where I'll be in five years and I haven't the slightest clue. Sure maybe I've get a few general ideas, but for the most part I'm just drawing a blank. My options are pretty limited; get out of the Navy and go to school, stay in and make Chief, or get accepted to a commissioning program where I'll go to school and become an officer.

I've been looking into college stuff a lot lately, and I definitely know if I want to go to school it'll be at Texas A&M, and my majors narrowed down to Business Management, Communications and Theatre Arts. The latter being what I would love to do but couldn't see myself making a living off of. But then again, if I do go officer by the time I'd be able to get out I'd be six years away from retirement. I know my line of thought at that point would be "Fuck it, just stick it out for another six years and get the retirement benefits!" And honestly it doesn't sound like that bad an idea, full retirement at 38, talk about every mans dream!

I've been looking into doing some distance learning courses as well to help ease the course load when I do get to school. Most the commoon core courses like math, history, english, etc. Plus I found out that my military experience and training my actually count as college credit! Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. Plus at Texas A&M, prior enlisted members of their NROTC program have the option of whether or not to participate in the majority of their functions and operations. An absolute minimum involvement in military duties while going to school AND getting paid to do it, the situation just keeps getting better!

I've been talking to a few of my friends from back home as well, and it's just made me miss everyone back home so much. I don't know where I would be without them as my friends, there have been so many times when just the thought of everyone back home has kept me going, given me a reason to get up in the morning, something to look forward to, especially when coming home on leave! They know for the most part how important they are to me, or at least I would hope they do. My friends have always been their for me, even when I'm only around a few weeks out of the year, and that means the world to me. I have the greatest friends in the world, and if you guys are reading this... Good Times!