Picking up the pace

Good evening!

What a busy week--all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. 

Let me give you some of the breakdown. I'm at Officer Training School (OTS) going through Basic Officer Training (BOT). Each BOT course is divided into two parts: Total Force Indoctrination Training (TFIT) and Total Force Officer Training (TFOT). TFIT is ~1 week, comes before TFOT, and teaches (or re-teaches for prior service) marching, drill, customs and courtesies. TFOT is ~8 weeks and I'm still figuring out what it teaches (though it general its more scholastic or mental and less physical). We have 257 Cadets, 16 flights, 4 squadrons, or 1 wing. They said ~5% of the class drops out before graduation.

Before I arrived here I thought I’d be able to post an entry once every couple of days. After a week or less, I updated my belief that I’d be able to write an entry only every Saturday night or Sunday. Now almost 2 weeks in, I have no idea when I’ll be able to write entries. Everyone here had thought that Sundays would be our own; a free schedule (Saturday evening as well), but after spending 2 very busy Sundays here, and knowledge that this weekend will very likely not be any different, I will not guess when I’ll write new posts. These days, we’re up at 0430, have various tasks until 0550 or so (occasionally PT); sometimes the tasks are short and more sleep is possible, but not often. We march to breakfast, which would take 2-3 minutes, but marching is tremendously inefficient so it takes 10 or more. I’m thinking it’s training us to be patient, never complain, and/or lose our individuality. Breakfast goes from 0600 to 0700 for the whole wing (the whole school of us 250 cadets), We are allocated 10 minutes to eat, which is apparently just enough for me personally (11-12 on a slow day). After breakfast we have class until 12. I’m in a flight with 16 people and unless we are have a whole-class lecture, it’s the 16 of us in a modest sized classroom. Lectures vary from Warfare that cites Carl Von Clausewitz all the time to sexual assault prevention to being a good follower to how to organize our clothing and things in our dorm rooms. Lunch from 1200 to 1300. More lectures from 1300 to 1700, then dinner from 1700 to 1800. It seems like I usually get back to the dorm between 1830 and 1700. Often there some task for us after dinner too, but this isn't always so. Lights out is at 2300 but I aim to get to sleep around 2045, seldom happens with seemingly innumerable meetings and accountability (roll call) around 2100. All in all, I have about 3 hours of “free time,” but that amount of time or more is needed just for readings. Every so often, I find myself looking around and asking, “what am I doing here?” It still blows my

Also for reference, my address is

Cadet [First Name] [Last Name]
24 TRS, Class 17-04, Flight 2-11
550 E Maxwell Blvd Box 9000
Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-9000