Wednesday, August 14, 2013

My Army, My Military

Our group of 27 soldiers got divided into three classes on Monday.  I am in a group of eight: two airmen, a Marine and five soldiers.
[NOTE:  Marine is always capitalized.  You can look up the fact in the AP Style Guide.  You can look up the reason on line if you are curious.]
During the first class we had an "ice-breaker" exercise.  During that exercise, I knew I was in the the part of the Army where I belong.
We each took a Post-It poster-size sheet, stuck it on the wall, and divided it in fours quadrants: Bio, Likes, Dislikes, Goals

Our class student leader is Ben.  Here is some of his answers:

LIKES:
Norrin Radd
Clubber Lang
Vita Sackville West
The Saturn myth

DISLIKES:
Fox News
The Lord of the Rings movies
Crossfit (as religion)
Ideology, particularly American pragmatism
Wynton Marsalis as representing all of Jazz
 
BIO:
31 
from Connecticut
Grad student at Trinity College

GOALS:
fulfilling employment
personal writing
learning to play the upright bass or speak a new languauge
develop more capacity empathy

Ben is a tall quiet staff sergeant who lifts weights and is a very fast runner.  

I like being in the Army, but I like it a lot more in a room of soldiers like Ben.



Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Good at Grammar After All--and Learning More

It's official. I got the highest grade on the grammar test in my class at DINFOS.  I got 93 of 100 right on the grammar test.  Next best grade was 90.  And I will be even better soon because we are spending the next week or so reviewing grammar.  Tonight's homework is looking up 33 grammatical points in the AP Stylebook and then editing several press releases.

It's after 9 p.m., I have less than a third of my homework done and I have to get up at 0400 hours.

More later.

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