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January 21, 2002
This is a new section I opened up after being inspired by my friend Meg and her friends web pages. Pardon my complete lack of grammar, I haven't practiced it seriously since high school. I probably should start, what with EN302 and the WPPWE (west point professional writing examination) this semester. For all you all who don't know what the WPPWE is, it's this way over blown, graduation requirement, that evaluates how well a cadet can insert words into a given format. I might have just jinxed myself, that's all I need to fail out because of a writing test.
Well, I am back here after a weekend in Boston, chillin with my lifetime friend Meg and her friends at BU. Surprisingly optimistic, though dreading my first day back in the academic year. They always dump these briefings on us the moment we're due back (700pm for all the civies). This one was a combination of 500th night, cow loan investment show, and class rings.
I've been trying to deal with 500th night as little as possible, so sitting there as our class VP jokes about dressing up your date for inclimate weather, I was somewhat less than amused. It's totally an event for the boys and their mail order brides and the husband and wife couples of West Point. For me, it's a reminder of Jason and my boyfriendless state (cadet or non-cadet), a mark of 500 days until five years left in the army, and another opportunity to be forced to eat less-than-adequate steak and potatoes in my loveboat uniform. Joy.
On the up and up, the next topic was the cow loan, $25000 of virtually free money (1% interest) which might be able to buy my happiness for the rest of the year. Don't worry, I don't plan on blowing $25000, just a thousand or so. The best part is I have no credit card bills to pay off. The only thing I owe is the $105 for the refrigerator privileges (which was worth every cent for all non-believers). So I can happily daydream about my apartment decor when I'm stationed who knows where in whatever branch they dump me in and the random items $1000 can buy me now.
Finally, the class rings. I have mixed feelings about these things. In a way I'm excited, but on the other hand, I've spent three years hating this place so the class ring shouldn't mean too much. Then again, after all I've been though I deserve the gaudy ring and and piece of paper that comes with it. Definitely going for the cheap metal alloy though, besides I never liked gold too much.
So back to the weekend in Boston. I got there by pure chance. I went on AIM, which I haven't done in ages, got IMed by a guy who was my classmate in my company who quit at the end of last year, who told me that a guy who was a plebe (first year) in my company last year was going to Boston. So, after emailing him, I got hooked up with a ride to Boston, albeit with a bunch of yuk (second year) guys whom I only sorta knew two of. They turned out to be good guys and I'm grateful. As it was our 3 day weekend wasn't really, three days, military intersession ran on to Saturday and after my last meeting it of course started snowing the worst snow since I got back here on the 8th.
**** it amazes me that I'm not sleepy, after taking the decongestant I thought for sure I'd be out cold, anyways****
So after about 7 hours on the road, I finally made it to Meg's bf's apartment at 10:00pm. Introduced to a room of intoxicated people while I myself was tired, cold and malnutritioned, I frantically tried to memorize the names thrown at me. I could id John Couture (aka Cooch, forgive me, but I just can't bring myself to use that nickname) because Meg had shown me his web page, Christen (?) Conway because she picked me up from Warren towers with Meg, Justin because he was excitedly jumping around with a bewildered expression on his face, Jon Rae because Meg quickly told me he was in ROTC, Bill because of the girl's endless bashing of him (all Bills must be the same), and Brittany and Lisa because they were the last girls to leave. Sorry, to all the rest that I forgot. I felt slightly lost but, welcome, as the Pats won in overtime and the boys celebrated by playing football on the street in the snow for an hour, and the girls danced around and gossiped.
The next day I got to go to my first hockey game. It was BU verses BC, I was ordered to bring red clothing (a color that I am in short supply of). I went to my roommate for help before I left. She good naturedly offered her BC shirt, but after a moment of thinking I realized Meg went to BU, wearing a BC shirt would likely get me beat up, so I settled for the semi-see through Bebe tank top. Hockey will forever remind me of Jason, so the whole time I was recalling the few things he told me about the sport. I knew that goals don't count if someone other than the goalie is in the blue circle and was able to (with a little luck) foresee the two goals scored by BU, he used to tell me something about rhythm. Of course the one goal that was scored by BC was a direct result of my pity for them (Meg can vouch for me). The language and behavior astounded me as everything from white trash to homosexuality to "your mother" insults were directed at the BC goalie (aka a sieve).
***I'm going to cut
myself off because it's 2:00am, more to come.****