Saturday, January 19, 2008

Deployment

When I'm not studying I enjoy reading up on a lot of things. The news being one of them. I feel it's important to know what's going on in the world. As some of you may know the 2PPCLI and elements of the RCHA (Royal Canadian Horse Artillery) from Shilo are deploying next month to Afghanistan. This is the largest deployment from Shilo so far in the conflict and I urge you all to start slapping the "Support Our Troops" ribbons on your vehicles. If you need help getting ribbons then I might be able to help, so just let me know! To read about the deployment click on the link below. There's also a video with the story if you look around the page the story is on.

To read: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080119/shilo_sendoff_080119/20080119?hub=Canada


In other news. Yesterday I was able to attend a session with Senator Romeo Dallaire or as some of you may know him LGen Dallaire. He was at RMC to discuss Canada's role in the world as a middle power and other world issues. Very good speaker!

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

3 Pillars down 1 to go!

So I'll try to keep this short, because it's more informative then anything intelligent or argumentative. So as some of you know RMC works on the four pillar system (academics, bilingualism, athletics, and military). As some of you may also know, I've been struggling to keep afloat in some of the pillars. Not going to lie. But today I conquered one more of the pillars. The military pillar has been conquered mostly since the day I got here. My previous room mate and I were masters at the art of being inspected. I will someday make a good wife as the joke goes, because I can dust, sweep, iron, and polish with the best of them. The bilingualism pillar, is on track to be conquered eventually and so in my opinion not something I'm struggling with. After today however only academics falls under the struggling category and it's being worked on.

Why only academics now in the stuggling category? Well today I conquered the PPT, which is the RMC fitness test or as one person I know calls it the CF Express (fitness test to be considered fit for military service in all branches and areas of the Canadian Forces) on steroids. The reason being for the increased standards? Officers lead from the front. Anyways enough is enough with me explaining boring acronyms. I passed the PPT. I finally got myself to do the pushups I needed to do. Yes even a body like mine struggles with some areas of fitness as do the bodies of most people floating around the 6'3'', 205lb range at least when it comes to pushups or as they're called in Quebec extensions des bras! Anyways one less worry for me. Now I'm a basketball ref for intramurals (my contribution to the intramural program). Tomorrow I begin learning how to ref, which is good because most of the stuff I know about basketball comes from TV and my high school coaches who learned it all from the "Dummies Guide to Basketball" book.

Until next time Per ardua ad astra!

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Back to school

I don't have a whole lot to write at the moment. I had a lot of ideas but nothing that I think I can effectively materialize. This last week went really fast. Made it back to Kingston last Sunday afternoon. Monday we were back to class, and I found out that I really need to get my butt in gear. Last semester was a bit rougher then even I anticipated, but after talking to some people I discovered that's a popular trend with some students coming out of rural Manitoba/Saskatchewan, and the Maritimes. So I'm back to giving it 120% and working my butt off. Switched rooms on Thursday. I unfortunately lost my view of Kingston and the causeway. It was replaced with the ability to watch everyone in the drinking mess and listen to everyone who runs up the stairs drunk on a Saturday night. On the brightside I've got a good room mate. Friday morning we had to clean out the squadron storage room. We found stuff in there that belonged to people who graduated 2-3 years ago. In fact someone is missing an entire suitcase of civilian clothes. Since all this stuff was up for grabs my room mate and I grabbed a bunch. We ended up with some of those folding camp chairs so now we sit around in our room doing home work and reading in camp chairs. I do this while sipping on apple juice from a beer glass to pretend like I'm partying when in actuality I'm stuck doing school work. He also picked himself up a blender from the storage room and we got a few basketballs.

Oh remember how I was trying to pick up in the bar using French? Well my French teacher asked us if we practiced our French over Christmas and was proud to hear I spoke some for about 5 minutes in the bar. I didn't mention that I was trying to pick up with it though........

In other freakish news I was reading in a men's magazine about a surgery a person can get for their ears. We all know some people like to put those weird grommet things in their ears and weird piercings, but what do Star Trek and Lord of the Rings fans get done to theirs? They get the tips of their ears surgically enhanced or changed to be pointy like those of their favourite Vulcan or Elf. Personally not my thing, the surgery looks painful (having the tips of your ears stitched together!). More on this and other odd body modifications at www.stevehaworth.com

Well that's all for me right now! Keep on rocking in the free world and if you live in Manitoba I'll be seeing you in a few weeks (yes I realize I just got back to Ontario) when I'm back in the Keystone province for Spring Break/Reading week!