I Earned my Ears!!

Translation? I passed my training!!! Storm Stuck is an eight day training schedule and I passed it in seven days, so I have one less day I have to be at work by 7:30am. I get to sleep in tomorrow and show up at 10:45am. Hot dog! I still get an eight hour day and all of it will be spent at Storm Struck. Greeting, Loading, Hosting the Show, Working the Storm Kit game and organizing the used 3D glasses. I am a little nervous, it will be the first time I am in rotation without having Cinnamon near by to make sure I don't royally screw up! I did three shows today for an audience. The last one was my assessment and of course out of a 30 person possible audience I only had eight people! It is so much easier to do a show for a big audience than a small one. They are more likely to laugh and interact and smaller audiences are much quieter. But I did a full rotation with someone who assessed me and then took my test, perfect score!

I went to bed at 10:30pm last night and I was up at 6:20am. Ugh. Not fond of that schedule. But like I said I get to sleep in tomorrow. But being up early had one perk. I got to talk to Ryan this morning for all of ten minutes! But I will take it. I ended up having to go to work so it couldn't be much longer than that but it was still good to just communicate with him period.

Work the next three days then off Monday and Tuesday for my birthday! Yay 22! On Monday I am going to visit my Uncle Dave who lives in Melbourne and not sure about Tuesday yet. Maybe Sam and Lauren are coming? Not sure yet.

It's here!

I leave for Disney tomorrow!!! The car is packed and Mom and I leave in the morning. We are driving down to Virginia and getting on the Auto Train for a seventeen hour train ride... with my car on board. We even have snuggies for the ride! I arrive in Orlando on the 18th and get a day to veg, then move in the 19th and 20th. Eek! I have that whole nervous first day of college feeling again. I hope I like my job, my room mate, my apartment, etc... I cannot believe it is here already.

Tomorrow Ryan mentioned he has a possibly dangerous operation. Please keep him in your prayers if you can. I am pretty worried. I got to talk to him on the phone Friday, which was amazing, and Saturday we missed one another, but this morning I did get a call from his aunt and found him on facebook chat at around 9am. So... yes. I don't know when I will get internet access again so I am going to be worrying for quite a bit. I hope he will be alright.

Not much change...

So this week has been pretty standard. I usually wake up around 7am or so and talk to Ryan for a bit and then go back to bed. If I am lucky I catch him again around 3pm and of course we have our emails. I still have yet to hear his voice, just in the saved voicemail I have on my phone for eleven more days.

Yesterday, Cat and I had a nice late pizza lunch and then we went and walked from Chinatown to the mall. We walked through the sculpture garden at the museum and put our feet in the fountain. Then we crossed the mall to the other sculpture garden and walked through it. In there they had this project started by Yoko Ono, you know, the wench who broke up the Beatles :P Anyway, it was called the Wishing Tree and it was this beautiful tree and next to it there was this box. Inside was paper and pencils and you write your wish on it and hang it on the tree. The have them in a lot of major cities apparently, it was beautiful. I wrote one wishing for Ryan and TFE to come home safely from Iraq... so I was definitely thinking of him as usual.

Some of the wishes were very silly, some typical, and some sad. There was one wish on the very bottom of the tree that said "I wish I were taller"! And one that wrenched my heart said "I wish no children would have to suffer from cancer" in pencil, then in the same handwriting under it said, "Especially my own". Others wished for love or fame or forture... and oddly a lot of them wished for puppies! You could tell a lot of little kids visited that tree!

After that we walked on the mall and watched the kickball and softball teams. If I ever live in DC again, and part of me hopes I do someday as I really do love this city... I want to join one of those leagues in the summer. They look like so much fun! But we watched them a bit and then we played Scrabble on a bench nearby. Cat had a travel edition we were itching to break out! It was a good game, we didn't keep score and managed to get all the tiles on the board. We then walked down to my favorite memorial, the WW2 one, and took a few pictures along the way. We then walked back to Chinatown and we saw that Navy band playing near the metro stop at the Archives so we listened for a bit before heading back. Then we all headed to my apartment and Anna Laura met us there. Coincedentally the 5th Harry Potter movie was on HBO, so we watched it and snacked on some chips and chicken nuggets and just talked. Then we went to the movie.

The movie was really good. One of the better versions of the book I've seen, so I was pretty happy about most of it. And it was looooong! We got out around 2:40am and I just got home, around an hour later. I drove Rich, Nick, and Cat home since they live by campus and the metro was obviously closed. But we had a good time. I heard that Darius Rucker song Ryan likes on the radio as I was driving, the one with "I've got a roof over my head the woman I love laying in my bed and its alright..." and I thought of him. It made me smile and kept me awake as I made the last leg home.

Tomorrow I think I am driving down to Quantico to hang out with Nadia for the day. I think both of us could use the distraction. She is pretty miserable as she doesn't get to talk to Spencer (her husband) as much as I do to Ryan. And the kids keep asking her where Daddy is which breaks my heart.

I am a little nervous. Ryan told me he has a new mission now, different from before. He can tell me about it maybe when it is half done or not til the end. I am praying for them all and I know they know what they're doing. I know communication will be rough once he is off base so I am really cherishing these emails and facebook chats. I am also dorkily saving them all! So when there are days I can't talk to him I will be re-reading them religiously. I can promise that.

Oh Babci's surgery was today, hip replacement. I know it will be fine, it is the recovery we're all worried about. I love the woman but she can be a pain in the ass! Especially with stuff like this. Poor Mom is going nuts! My Dad picked up Babci and Poppy and bought them to our house only to have them realize they forgot Babci's X-Rays! So Mom had to drive an hour to get them and an hour back because they cannot and will not do the surgery without them! She wasn't too happy about that.

Oh! My room mate Caitlin is moving out today. I will officially be the only person left in my apartment!!! Weird! I feel like I live alone basically anyways so not much will change, but it will be weird. Kinda lonely too. Boo. At least its only for like two or three weeks. I have to start packing and organizing and now I can throw anything left behind without wondering who it belongs to. If it is left it is either mine or gone!

My adventure today was small... Anna Laura ran out of gas so I went to get her! Then I read outside by the fountain for an hour before coming back to the apartment.


Gosh I really miss him today. Today is one of the worst days since he actually left. I feel so... lonely.

Totally worth waking up at 7:30am for...

I got a phone call at almost 7:30 am from Ryan's mom saying he was online and to sign on. I did and I got to talk to him on facebook for 15 minutes and I had an email waiting! He is training on base for awhile and told me about the weather. It is insanely hot, like when you open an oven door, all the time. And the sand is like fine powder and it gets everywhere. Apparently they changed up the teams again but he said his is still the best. He couldn't tell me who was where for security online, but I hope it's good! And he said I knew people on it. So fingers crossed.

7:42am Ryan
have a great day sweetie ill be thinking about you when i see the stars tonight

Hopefully I'll have at least one star to look at to think of him too.