Adventures of a tool

Day one:
#1 I subconsciously reach up and touch my hair, then think (2 weeks after the last haircut) "Wow, my hair is really long!!"
freshmen have to have "white walls", basically shave our heads, to be qualified as good looking in uniform.

#2 (to be repeated, no doubt) Talk about my roommate, only to receive blank stares. Oh yes, I must have said "Old Lady."
It's not a blackbelt (freshmen/sophomore) privilege to have rooms, so we don't have roommates either. We have an old lady, that we have to take care of very carefully.

#3 Free time! What do I do? Sleep? Well, polishing shoes may be more important this time.... Oh yeah, I don't have to have them two-barred tomorrow.
Our black shoes need to be so reflective that under fluorescent lighting you can see the individual bars. Basically mirror-finished polish. It looks good, but it takes a lot of work.

This in the space of about 3 hours. We'll see how things continue in the near future.

Day two:
#4 Realize that I haven't explained yet what a 'tool' is.
Tools are those people that just can't give up the Corps games, even when they're not really in the Corps at the moment. These games are often excessive and seem completely out of the normal for any normal person. We're not exactly normal people, you know. Not even after just a semester. It gets worse if the sophomores, juniors, or seniors are tools.

#5 Realize that for some odd reason, I'm not using many abbreviations, or those I do use I want to know exactly what they mean.
Corps games you know. Freshmen aren't allowed to use acronyms, so we get along just fine either knowing and saying exactly what they mean, or else just not using them.

Day three:
#6 At the tournament, find out that somebody knows what the haircut (long as it is) implies, and unfortunately tell them some of the silly things we tools do, not knowing that they would be treating it like an inside joke from then on.
The game in question -- if somebody whacks me with a garrison cap, I have to thank them and ask for another. These things are far less common as an upperclassmen, so I'm looking forward to that.

Lost track of time:
#7 Show off how much I can... or rather, want to physically train myself. It may be excessive.
We're supposed to stay in shape over the break. I'm mentally preparing myself for said staying in shape. It's high time I actually started to do so.

Note that there's probably a dozen examples of each, along with many unmentioned. You know, when they said we would get tool training, I think they meant training on how not to be one. It didn't work very well. O_o

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This tournament I mentioned -- I'm a judge this time. First time ever. Alumni get food paid for and provided, as long as they judge some. I rather think judges get the sweet end of this deal this time :)

Pictures so far, if you look again later on I'll have more up. (as of 6:30 12/18/2010)

Brenham Meltdown 12/10

More to come later? Who knows. I got one post in last month, maybe it'll be one more this month.

Thoughtfulness... well, I'm afraid I haven't any for the moment. You see, it's so hard to find thinking time sometimes, when all is on the go. But I suppose this is worth thinking about -- how much time does it take? Just because you spend a long time thinking about something doesn't mean you were thorough, and just because you were done thinking fairly quickly doesn't mean you were not!

God bless!
-Petr