Hello there. I've gained some new chums lately so if you're wondering what this is, well aside from the obvious, this is me sharing my Arizona experience as suggested by my friends and family back in NJ. Feel free to read it, I love getting feedback, but this is mainly just my way of keeping in touch with the ginormous support group I've gathered through the many stages of my life.
For those of you that have been reading this all along, I don't think I can be as descriptive as I was with the WFR & "vacation day" posts but I'll share what I can. Enjoy...
Here We Go:
Today was the big day. The day everything I’ve been working toward for essentially the past 8 years, ever since my sophomore year at Stockton when I changed my major from Marine Biology to Criminal Justice & Psychology. I’d been looking forward to a fresh start toward something I know I’d enjoy and be very good at for years and when I woke up and I was the farthest thing from nervous.
At least I didn’t feel nervous but my body must’ve felt differently, subconsciously. That little internal clock of mine woke me up every hour at about quarter after the hour from 5am until I officially got up, hit the head, and then headed to the kitchen to grab some breakfast. Whole wheat bagel thin with cream cheese, watermelon, and some diet green tea...mmmmmmm. Jane left a sweet good luck message on the chalkboard for us and I pretty much gazed at it the entire time I ate. I went from my meal to trying to get a hold of Stockton to try to figure out my transcript ordeal so I can finish my two applications from yesterday. It turns out that they don’t have an online option for the transcripts so my hard copies should be good enough to scan and add to my apps….cool.
It was time to get dressed and I was certainly happy I went one size bigger than I normally wear because these pants get a little huggy. I put on my super thick NPS issued brown socks, my brown belt, and my super shiny brown-ish colored boots, and the cool thing about this class…I packed up my laptop and flashdrive that’ll serve as my “notebook” which gets turned in for a grade, and we were on our way. The social sciences building is on the other side of campus so we took a different way to school and found our new parking lot. We heard a soft “hey guys!” from behind us when we got out of the car. We turned and saw Christine, the youngest future ranger of the group that we met the night before at our meet & greet, then the 3 of us headed a different way into the building and made our way into the class.
We walked in and saw a lot of familiar faces both from the WFR & the little meet and greet. We could only see the back of our nametags but Arkansas showed me where my seat was…back row baby. My neighbors are Josh from WFR & Eric I met at the meet and greet. Some of the WFRers talked across the room to each other and as 12 neared closer, Kathy (the director) walked in and the class grew silent. It was at this point where I got my first “job” of program. Thanks to my glorious god given height I was requested to take the clock off the wall and set it to the right time…it has mind of its own. We had a packet of papers in front of us and the top page was entitled “Who Are You??” and there were 8 questions about ourselves that I THOUGHT we were going to stand up in front of everybody and talk about ourselves…I was wrong. We met a couple of the instructors and then it was time for our neighbors to interview us and then THEY would introduce us to the class; the WFRers weren’t allowed to work together. The items included preferred name, home town, educational background, leadership experience, work experience, hobbies, dream job, & 2 unique items of personal interest.
I had some fun with it, naturally, I had A LOT of leadership experience to share and I never really thought of my dream job before. For hobbies I put basketball, texas hold’em & fantasy football and dream job I put park ranger, pro poker player, & pro athlete. My 2 items of personal interest were my 3 fantasy football championships from this season (everybody laughed but I added that those championships covered my rent while I’m out here) and that I saw my first elk ever when I was riding home from Sedona last week. HERE’S THE GOOD NEWS FOR THOSE GUYS IN MY FANTASY FOOTBALL LEAGUES & the DONKEYS DOWN IN AC… once I am employed by the National Park Service I can NO LONGER GAMBLE! Now somebody else will have a chance to win the title in the J.E.F.F. …..man I hope they don’t ever play football again after this season hahahaha.
As the class went on and with this exercise fresh in my brain, I toyed with the idea of going after our next topic. I’m contemplating putting myself up for the Class President role! A week or 2 ago I thought there was no way I’d want this responsibility, mostly because of the speech I’d have to give at graduation, but the more comfortable I got in Flagstaff and the more experience I realized I had…the more I thought about maybe making this happen. Nothing will be decided until next week, after we beat each other up all weekend, so I’ll see how comfortable I am with everything going on and MAYBE put myself out there. Some of the responsibilities include interrupting instructors for our breaks and checking out everybody’s uniforms prior to inspection…but I started doing that on my own today thanks to what we were taught when preparing for the MCPS Academy…back pocket buttons buttoned, some people’s belts missed their loops…stuff like that. It’s a lot of responsibility but it could be very good for me! Nick got a program long job today, he’s the Sergeant at Arms or of Arms…his job is to make sure the room is ready to be locked up for the day after we’re done, i.e. shutting the windows, turning off the computers, clearing the dry erase board, etc..
I’m fortunate to be in this program at NAU. Kathy informed us that whenever there is a FLETC class (when you get a full time gig you go to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia for 4 months for more training with other Federal Law Enforcement agencies) the majority of the new recruits come from NAU’s program. She further pumped me up by sharing that in the past 3 years only 2 students didn’t get placed in jobs….that’s AWESOME. We met our PT instructor and he’s not a crazy scream at you ex marine drill sergeant type guy. He works for the school but it doesn’t seem like he’s much older than a student. He’s got a great training background and the things we’re going to do in his portion of the class gave me a kind of “Biggest Loser” feeling. We’ll track our workouts, get some nutrition information and we’ll have our own workouts outlined to meet our “fitness goals”, which we actually hand in as part of a grade. Cool ey?
The day went basically how you’d expect an orientation to go. People had questions about not being able to use the gym and what not so I volunteered my knowledge about Aquaplex, “The Plex”, and I think I scared away any workout partners in doing so. Taking pictures at various things is encouraged because we’ll have a slideshow at graduation! I won’t be posting much on Facebook because I don’t think that we can or something, I’m not sure if that just pertains to videos, but for the sake of professionalism, any pics I take I may just have to save for my near & dear when I get home. We got some text books that we borrow for the semester, went over some rules, and had a little tutorial for our computers…then it was time for the fun stuff. We got our uniforms followed by our duty belts! Yes, I had a duty belt with the MCPS but they were nothing like this! To go with my familiar OC spray (training model), handcuffs, & radio holster were my new found firearms holster & training firearm, asp baton & holster, magazine clip holsters, and belt keepers…I’m feeling official…but it was a lot to carry out to the car.
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| I'm not even sure I can have this pic but just letting everybody know I'm okay. |
We got home and showed off our new equipment to Jane and Nick started dinner, Rice A Roni with grilled chicken. Tomorrow’s Taco Night! My mail from home showed up today (thanks M-DuB) and the EMS notebook & The Other Guys arrived from Amazon (love gift cards) as well. While Nick was cooking I scanned some of my qualifications & transcripts and added them to my applications and checked in on Laura. We ate, I finished my applications and Nick took off to go running. How can he go running right after he ate!?!?! I gave myself an hour and went over to “The Plex” to get a workout in. Damn my ticker is mad at me for taking that month off….YIKES! I was close to running 2 miles around the week before Christmas but I could hardly do 1 tonight. In my defense, running was the 3rd part of my cardio trifecta (bike, elliptical, & treadmill). The pool & bball courts were less crowded today but the gym was the most crowded I’ve seen it so far...and today some of the local meatheads showed up. All-in-all it was a good workout. I went slow & light since TOMORROW STARTS OUR PT!!! I came home, cleaned up a little bit and threw on The Other Guys…say what you will but I liked it haha. Time for a shower and for hitting the sack. Tough day tomorrow!
Good Night Friends & Family
MOUNT UP!!!
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