Gladius Flight - Eval 2

I can’t believe this year is almost over! Each week brings us closer to finding out whether we will make it into Honor Guard, but after last night I’m really disappointed in my performance.   I made some stupid mistakes, for example, I recited knowledge while at Present Arms which you are definitely not allowed to do.  One of the good things is that I know what I did wrong and for the makeup evaluation, because I almost certainly failed, I will know enough not to make the same mistakes.  We are ranked on a scale of 1 to 7 in several categories including bearing, knowledge, marching, attitude, and others that are not coming to mind at the moment.  The way our evaluations work is that for the first evaluation only one judge needed to pass you to pass entirely.  For the second evaluation you need to be passed by all judges present to pass entirely, and if you fail you have one opportunity to be reevaluated.  For the third and final evaluation you also must be passed by all judges present on the first try.  Overall I feel we have made strides as a flight and individually.  I was god-awful when we started and the two other members of Gladius flight love to remind me whenever the chance arises.  It’s going to be tough these next five or six weeks with finals galore going on.  I’m also going to post some photos with this blog if I figure it out.  There are three photos in mind that I want to include, such as our rock-climbing flight event from two weeks ago, our sharp looking Honor Guard bulletin board that is in the Detachment, and also a photo of our Gladius flight emblem.  The emblem is essentially a multiple layer iron-on transfer that I cut out by hand and ironed on our red pennant, or flag for those of you who aren’t sure what guidons or pennants are.

Proposal

Everyone has desires, and as crazy or seemingly impossible as they may seem, they are not.  What bothers me is when people settle.  I’ve seen it happen to friends, family, and even more so with my Plainfield High School graduating class this past year.  I can no longer go to our local Walmart, McDonalds, or Big Y without running into several classmates on any given occasion.  How do any of them know what’s out there if they aren’t willing to leave the confines of their hometown?  One of the best decisions I’ve ever made has been the decision to attend Penn State.  The distance, while at times, has had me staring tearfully at my photos pinned to the corkboard above my desk, I’m no longer afraid of forsaking the familiar.  As for the rest of my graduating class, only a handful of students have since moved out on their own, much less ventured outside of New England for college.  Although I have three older cousins who have all successfully graduated high school, I was the first to attend college on my mother’s side.  At ages 23, 22 and 21 they’ve each had several jobs over the years−the oldest of which is currently licensed to grow medicinal marijuana.  I jokingly tell him that he makes me so proud when in fact, visiting him and my other older cousins makes me sad to think that they are content with living at home and working mediocre jobs.  There are so many opportunities that people let pass them by that render them average.   Their unwillingness to make an effort is an upsetting sight, as I have seen with many of the people in my life.  In my paper I intend on exploring different reasons why people settle by providing examples from what I’ve personally seen.

Project GO!

This week I found out that I will be attending Indiana University this summer!  My Arabic professor had recommended a summer workshop there called SWSEEL.  Focusing on Slovak and Eastern European languages, it is an intense nine week program that requires you sign a contract agreeing to speak only the language of study.  As an ROTC student, the government also invests in cadets/midshipmen interested in learning critical languages such as Arabic or Russian.  I have horrible luck so it was that much more exciting to find out I had been rewarded the Project GO funding for SWSEEL this summer.  All I have to do is pass Arabic now...so we shall see about that.  If I decide to continue learning Arabic after completing Field Training I believe it is an additional pay check each month, mostly because of the high need for these critical languages.  In terms of scholarships, they are given out first to technical majors, then to language majors, followed by non-technical majors such as myself.  Apart from Arabic being difficult to learn, at least in my opinion, it is not offered as a major at many American universities.  I therefore could not double major in this language if I wanted to qualify as a language major.  Part of the reason why I chose this language is because it’s a critical language, and also because I didn’t find Spanish all that interesting in high school.  Arabic is cool because it’s different and has a different alphabet I thought.  This also makes things problematic because I can’t have just anybody help me study for a test because they have absolutely no idea whether I’m right or not.  Despite the difficulty of the language, I’m excited to continue learning Arabic at Indiana University this summer, in a much more effective and efficient environment.