A Day of Promotions - (Korea) Day 63

A photo outside our battalion headquarters (where I took Korean drivers ed)
Superman may visit here a lot

This morning work call was at 0700. We actually didn't need to come in so early because we completed most of the setup last night, but it worked out OK because I was able to get some stuff done on the computer since I hadn't been in the office too much for the last week. I was able to finish a couple SkillPorts while waiting for the next meeting.

I got an email stating that I will have CQ this weekend…crap! It's a four day weekend, but not for me…I'll be spending one of them guarding a hall again. I'm having flashbacks to AIT. I have to go to a brief tomorrow at 1500 to find out more about it. I also have to give the Korean drivers ed instructor a call tomorrow to find out when my test is. He told me earlier that it will either be Thursday or next Tuesday. I also got an email back from HRC (Human Resources Command). I had tried calling them, but also sent an email just for the heck of it. These are the folks that will put you in your next assignment. I wasn't too happy. The entire reply stated that I will be placed depending on the needs of the army. The requests I sent are for openings that are available when I'm done here, to me that sounds like the needs of the army!! So they're saying everything I've heard so far about me going to Korea unaccompanied and having preference for my next post is all BS. I think they are just lazy and don't want to do any extra paperwork. I have found that a lot in the army, there are a number of people that are just plain lazy. They don't do anything unless they absolutely have to. I had thought this whole time that it has to be too good to be true to pick your next assignment. I'm a little depressed right now about that. My sergeant says I should still call, I may get someone who actually gives a damn. He also said because I'm just a PFC they may not think twice about blowing me off.

A little before lunch we setup for a promotion ceremony that involved one of our captains in our office. He was being promoted to major. I'm not sure if this is tradition in the entire army or just here, but he bought all the food and drinks for the reception afterwards. It was a pretty good spread too, I had a nice lunch. After the reception we had to clean up everything. By the time we finished it was time for another promotion ceremony. This one had our general giving the speech and promotion. It was for some chief warrant officer going from 3 to 4. It turned out to be after 1700 by the time they were done. We were able to eat dinner there though before we cleaned up after them.

Today seemed like a very long day. I came in early and never left the place until about 1800. The good news is that when I got back to my barracks the internet was back on and running. Woohoo! I feel connected again :)

Half and Half - (Korea) Day 62

This morning I had PT at 0600. I was the only one there from our office because their work call was at 0600 for some early meetings. Since I had Korean drivers ed today, I was able to go. The problem was nobody in the office new where the PT formation was supposed to be. It's usually in front of the company which is about a 10 minute walk, or right in front of our barracks. I was planning on going to the company, but luckily on the way out of the barracks I saw a girl from our sister office and asked her if she knew where the formation was. She said it was in front of our barracks…so glad I ran into her. I wasn't too worried though, I figured if I missed the formation nobody would know because there was nobody from my office lol. We did some sprints, jogged around the block at a slow pace, ran up the stairs a few times, and did some push-ups and sit-ups.

Work call this morning was at 0900 for Korean drivers ed. Our class all started showing up in battalion, but nobody knew where to go…so we all just sort of hung out in the hall way. Finally our instructor showed up and said both the conference room and the classroom were being used. We ended up going on a motor pool field trip. We all walked up to the motor pool and were shown how to do an inspection of the vehicle. This is something that is required before taking any vehicle out. It includes basic checking of all the fluid levels, lights, and other basic stuff. After this we broke for lunch.

When we came back we ended up going to the little gym and taking our pre-test on a racket ball court floor. The pre-test turned out to be a total waste of time. I had my paper graded and missed quite a few, so I started checking the answers and they were correct. I showed the instructor and he confirmed. Turns out they didn't have all the correct answers, so we were told we'll get a new copy tomorrow. After that we were dismissed for the day. Any other day I would have just went back to my room and chilled, but SPC Roy is moving and had to leave at lunch. I went into work and helped cover for his absence.

I ended up covering our sergeants desk taking calls and doing SkillPorts. I also had enough time to check in on my schoolwork. After that I helped setup for a meeting that is going on tomorrow morning. I will not be attending tomorrow's Korean drivers ed because it is on tactical driving (driving the hummers and bigger trucks). I just need my TMP license which will let me drive the government car. I will check in with the sergeant though and get those correct answers at some point during the day. I was told we'll have our official test on Thursday.

After work I headed back to my room. I still have no internet, but my roommate said it should be up tomorrow afternoon. I'm so happy because if he said it was going to be any longer, I was going to go back to my old expensive service. Not having internet really sucks. I would say it's a must when you're living in the barracks. I was able to call and talk to my wife and kids today, but video chat is so much better. Also just checking in on Facebook helps me see what my friends and family are up to. It helps me not feel so far away from everyone. Plus I need to be able to download and upload stuff for school. I'm already not feeling comfortable with this class.

So what did I do to pass the time? I watched a whole crap load of TV shows that I had downloaded (probably what put us over the limit with the internet…lol) I'll be keeping an eye on our usage from now on.

Weekend Wrap-Up - (Korea) Days 59-61

A photo I took while inside "The Naked Bar". It was still very early in the
night, so not a lot of people there yet. It looked like a bar you would see
in a science fiction film, where the characters visit a bar on another planet...
except instead of aliens, there were only Koreans.

Friday: Work call this morning was 0900 for driver's training once again. When I arrived we all sat in the conference room with the instructor and talked about movies until lunch. We discussed our favorite movies, good movies, bad movies and just about everything you could think of. One of the guys next to me stated that "12 Angry Men" was one of the great movies he loved. Everyone looked at him with a questioning look as if they've never heard of that movie before. I quickly added "It's a gay porn". That had everyone laughing. We were then dismissed for lunch, which brings up something that came up in our class today. We have two girls that work in the DFAC on post. The one that has been sitting next to me said that she doesn't ever eat at the DFAC! That is interesting a person that works there, but will not eat there. I guess maybe it's a good thing that I don't eat there either.
After lunch we came back and we then took turns driving around post with the instructor. I was in the first group. We were told it was going to be a stick shift, but it turns out that it was in the shop. My guess it's getting repaired from the previous classes that couldn't drive a stick. The three of us took turns driving around post. We didn't do anything special, the instructor just wanted to make sure we could in fact drive. When we got back I headed up to the barracks and did some schoolwork. The class I'm taking now "Introduction to Programming" is not my cup of tea. I find myself struggling every step of the way. I've never cared too much for programming, and I'm not quite sure why I even have to take it for my degree. I just hope I can struggle through it and pass the class to move on to the next one. Usually I want to get an A, but I don't really care at all about this class…just as long as I pass.

Later on I met up with the young hawaiian and we went out to Itaewon to find a place to eat. We checked out a number of restaurants. There are so many it makes it hard to choose. We were also on somewhat of a budget, so we ended up choosing a place called "The Naked Bar & Grill". Tonight's special was rib eye steak for 13,000 Won (about $13). It was an interesting place and the food was really good. We headed back to post after that and watched "No Strings Attached"at the theatre. This may be the first time I've watched a chick flick with another dude. I'm secure in my masculinity though :). It was a romantic comedy and wasn't too bad. It had it's funny parts. Instead of the usual romantic comedy where the guy loses the girl and then gets her back, it was the girl who lost her guy and had to get him back.

Saturday: I was told my sergeant was coming this morning, so I woke up at 0800 and made sure my room was clean. I mopped the floor and wiped everything down. He came looked around really quick and then asked if I was doing OK and if I had any questions. It turned out to be somewhat of a wellness check I guess. I heard there was a suicide on post and this is in response to that. They want to check and make sure everything's going well with the soldiers.

I lost internet today as well. I had just cancelled my service which cost me $60 a month in favor of sharing my roommate's service which will cost me $20 a month. Little did I know we hit our 30 GB limit and he was gone for the weekend. Grrrrr. I've grown to rely on the internet for a lot of my entertainment, communication, and school needs. It's kind of impractical not to have it in our room now. I talked to my roommate and he's going to see if he can up the limit and we'll try to monitor our usage a little better. I won't know if he can or not until this Monday. If he can't I'll have to go back to my more expensive, but reliable internet. So until Monday I will be back to using the food court internet. Ugghhh

I've been watching a ton of TV shows lately (perhaps part of the cause of going over our internet limit). I've been trying to catch up on everything that I've fallen behind on since going to basic. I love being able to watch one episode after another without having to wait a week for a new one to come out.

Sunday: Woke up at 0800 and got ready. I then went over to the young hawaiian's room and we waited for his sergeant to come pick us up. His sergeant (I'll call him SGT Chamorro) asked if we wanted to go shopping with him in Osan. He said there is some good shops up there. I figured I would go just to get out and do something different. We drove to Osan which is about an hour away, it's the air force base we flew into Korea when we first arrived here.

SGT Chamorro wasn't kidding when he said there was good shopping there. Right outside of the base are a ton of shops lined up block after block selling everything you can think of. I'm not much for shopping, I'm your typical male. I usually know what I want and go in to get it and get out. It's a little different here in Korea, there is just so much stuff it can be neat to just window shop. I just wish it was a little warmer out (more on that in a bit). I also would like to roam free next time. I just followed the guys I was with into each shop, but there are so many more that I'd like to check out just to see what kind of stuff they have in there.

I was able to get my wife what I think is a pretty cool present, but I can't actually say what it is cause she'll read this before she gets it. I had her present in a bag. It was actually wrapped in a plastic bag, which was placed in another designer bag, then placed in a plastic shopping bag. I am very glad this was the case. Each of the shops we went into usually had some sort of space heater in them. I guess central air, or any type of heat isn't an option in these shops. Well it was so cold I would usually migrate next to the space heater. I was doing this while the other guys were looking at some sort of questionable video game device (some sort of usb stick that you could plug into a Wii and play a number of video games…didn't sound very legit). All of a sudden the owner says "you're on fire". I wasn't actually on fire, but my bag had started to melt to the space heater. I guess I couldn't feel it because I was still too cold. I also couldn't smell it because my nose was running too much. After inspecting my bag I found that it had melted through everything all the way to the gift I bought, but there was no damage to the gift. I was literally seconds away from ruining the valentines day present I just bought my wife! That would have sucked!!! The shop worker had to wipe off his space heater because there was melted plastic still all over it…lol

We then ate at a place called ThaiLand which was very good. I had some spicy noodle dish, then we headed back on base and checked out their PX before heading back. On the way back I fell asleep, but woke up when our car decided to die right in the middle of the hwy. SGT Chamorro was trying to get it started back up as people were driving by honking at us. One guy even had a loudspeaker and I think he was cussing us out as he drove by. The car finally started and we made it back without further incident.

I had to go to the food court so I could use their internet to do some school work and video chat with my wife. I need internet back in the barracks…that sucks!

Change is Coming - (Korea) Day 50

A view of the conference room control center. This is where I watch basketball

and control the PowerPoint slides for the meetings.

 Work call this morning was at 0830. I had to setup for a meeting in our conference room that was at 1000. I could barely stay awake during it. There was a major in the control room with me flipping the slides for the presentation that was going on. If he wasn't in there I don't know if I would have been able to stay awake. It's starting to make sense why I saw SPC Short with a can on Monster energy drink in his hand constantly. I just sat there in case there was a technical emergency and watched some college basketball which was on mute.

After the meeting I went to lunch in my barracks room. I was looking forward to video chatting with my wife, but when I got to the room I found my roommate asleep. So much for video chatting…I just ate in silence and went on Facebook while listening to music on my headphones.

After lunch we received some bad news. I saw it coming a while ago and actually I'm surprised it took this long. Because of the two guys in our office who failed their PT tests at times, we now have to do PT with the company in the morning instead of doing it ourselves in the afternoon. I guess we have lost that privilege. Personally I think only the ones who are having difficulty staying in shape on their own should have to do the company PT at the crack of dawn.

I then headed up to my office in the conference room planning on doing some SkillPorts, but to my surprise some people followed me up and said they were having a meeting. Our KATUSA had just told me he thought it was cancelled…I guess not. I got the system up and running and had to sit in the control room with an air force chick who was flipping the slides…I watched some more basketball.

After the meeting we had our office and our sister offices come up to the conference room. Our colonel presented an award to SPC Short. The award has been waiting for him for a few months, but he couldn't have it until he passed his PT test. Nothing like waiting until the last minute! SPC Short accepted it and we all shook his hand and then he took off to catch a ride off to the plane to take him back to his family…lucky guy. After the presentation our colonel asked everyone to stay. He had great things to say about SPC Short, but he gave us all the "PT is very important" speech. Then we also got to hear our sergeant major give another little "PT is very important" speech. She spoke about how SPC Short did a lot of things that are normally done by higher ranking individuals. She went on to talk about all the experience they usually have in the office…then she looked right at me and said….. "now we have someone straight out of AIT". WTF? Nothing I can do about that. I didn't choose this assignment and if I was actually working on computers, I would have more experience than most.

Speaking of doing my job…later on my job was to hold the door open for a meeting that was coming up. As I'm standing there another PFC from the dungeon asks me what my MOS is. Turns out he's a 25C and he doesn't do his job either. He says what I'm thinking "Good thing they sent us to all that schooling so we can stand here and hold doors open for officers".

I got out of work about 1530 and headed to the gym for PT. I rode a bicycle and then did some abs work with SPC Lee who was doing "fat boy" PT with our sergeant. Me and our KATUSA joined him to give him a little support. We did a lot of variations of leg lifts. 6 inches off the ground…spread 'em…to the right…to the left…..all the way up…back down - 6 inches. A great workout form my abs.

My KATUSA roommate just brought over a cell phone hot spot for us to try. We really get ripped off using the only provider of internet for our barracks. $59 a month is a lot and the speed isn't that great. We pay it because it's the only option we have. Turns out that outside of base internet is much much cheaper. In fact the hot spot that we are testing is only about $20 a month. Everything seems to be working fine with it, so I may be switching and saving quite a bit.

Gettin’ Internet - (Korea) Day 14

A view of the conference room we are in charge of. 

VIPs sit at the table, while the rest get the seats in the back.

Last night my KATUSA roommate came back and was asking me if I had an internet connection in the room. I told him no, but I had thought about getting one if I could split the cost with someone. I've heard that our only option for internet is $60 a month. He said he thought there were cheaper options, but that guys in the Korean army during their two year mandatory time in service they don't make much money. In fact they barely make anything. He is what is equivalent to the same rank as me (a PFC), yet he only makes about $70 a month. Holy Cow!! OMG!! Crap!! and all those other words of surprise!! I had no idea that they didn't make hardly anything. They do get a room and they do get to eat at the DFAC, but other than that they don't get much of anything. He said it's because it's mandatory that they don't have to pay hardly anything. I'm still in a little shock. I don't think I could ask him to give me half his monthly paycheck for internet. KATUSAs aren't allowed to have electronics (i.e. cell phones or laptops), but I think all of them do. I'm not sure how much they enforce that rule, or how much trouble they get in if they get caught.

This morning I woke up at 5:10AM to make sure I got up and got to the gym by 5:30AM. Our gym PT was a bit unique as far as my limited experience in the army goes. We started off putting on some boxing gloves and hitting the heavy bag. We would punch for a minute, then rest…another minute with rest and then finally a two minute session. I never knew how quickly you can get tired just by punching a bag. I think it may be good stress relief too. I also learned something new this time to the gym. They do have treadmills, they are just located upstairs which I didn't know existed until today. We then moved down to the basketball court next to the bleachers and did 4 sets of 25 dips and then some elevated push-ups. We moved into the weight room and did some training on our own. Finally we came out and sat on the wall just like I used to do back in junior high P.E. My legs still burned just the same. All in all it was a pretty good work-out.

Once I arrived to work this morning, we had to get everything setup for a meeting. Once we were all setup and I was about to leave, I was told I needed to help out in a little award ceremony they were going to have at the beginning of the meeting. So I ended up having to stand in front of everyone holding a framed scroll with a couple of coins in it until the 4 star general was ready to hand it to the awardee. At that point I handed it to the general and my work there was done.

We cleaned up after the meeting and setup for another one that was going on later. I then broke down and decided to get the internet in my barracks. I hate having to pay for this expensive internet here, but I think with school coming up soon and having a constantly available quality connection to use with Skype will be much better. I will also have more time if I don't have to walk back and forth to the food court each time I wanna use the Internet. Unlike back at Fort Gordon where there was a wireless network we could just join and pay for in the barracks, we have to sign up and have the internet installed in our rooms here. Very similar to what a person has to go through when they order the internet for their house. I made my appointment during lunchtime tomorrow.

My next stop was to the PX where I bought some speakers and a wireless router for my future internet. This will allow my KATUSA roommate to use the internet as well, I just have to figure out a good price for him to pay me. I wonder if he can bring me some Korean food from home when he has weekend passes??

When we arrived back to work it was pretty slow for the rest of the day. We were told that we all had to bring our gas masks tomorrow. I guess we're having a drill or something. Reminds me of the good ol' days in basic when the drill sergeants would throw CS gas in our formation. I wonder if there will be any CS gas tomorrow…hmmmmmm.