Highlights from Day 1
Got to the ship at noon and spent the rest of the day getting oriented.


Exhausted
When I got into bed that night, I put my pillow on my stomach so that I could reach back and adjust the bed curtains witch were misaligned and when I woke up 6 hours later, my pillow was still on my stomach and my arm was still stretch out to adjust my curtains. I fell asleep before I made it.

Officer Berthing
When they were dolling out bed assignments, I was told that if my education exceeded a bachelor’s degree, than I would be given an officers bunk. ‘Finally!’ I thought, ‘My degree is good for something!’. So just in case the man making assignments didn’t recognize what an M.ED. stood for, I wrote out MASTERS OF EDUCATION in block letters. Unfortunately it only earned me the middle bunk in the enlisted quarters in a room with 126 other women sharing the same bedroom and bathroom.


The Army Hates the Navy and the Navy Hates the Beans
Our first Navy meal was pizza, fried chicken, fresh fruit, cookies, salad and soda. Those of us with the misconception of losing a bit of weight here were quickly corrected.

Lesson in Naval Promptness
We were told that the naval base in Singapore was going to celebrate the 4th of July with fireworks at 20:00. I thought it would be really cool to watch them from the deck of the ship so we headed up there at 5 to 8:00. We were a little afraid to just open doors and walk down halls where we’ve never been so it took us a bit of time the find the top deck. We arrived at 8:04 and the air was filled with the smell of gunpowder, but the show had begun and already ended 2 minutes before we arrived. So we watched the 2 minute video that someone recorded on his camera, while the navy band played a jazzed up version of ‘Play that Funky Music White Boy.’ And we pretended that we made it in time.

Actually it ended kind of cool because the ship’s Master (The guy who drives the Ship) who may or may not be exceptionally attractive, let us use the massively high powered binoculars located on the off limits section of the ship’s bridge to spy on people below. What?