Pensacola Update 5-26-2012

Classes officially began on May 3, 2012.  Andrew got woken up at 0455 and was told to meet in the Megabuilding at 0700. Shortly after he found out he was in an all navy class with 25 students and has night classes.  Usually classes are split half Marines and half Navy but not his. This is the first series of classes called Aviation Technical Training (ATT). It is a computer based class with two Marine instructors and this first course is 23 class days long (he has 10 left). The class is on basic electronics like circuits, capacitors, conductors, power supplies, etc. Andrew has class Monday - Friday from 1500-whenever they finish, usually about 2300 with an hour dinner break that he comes back to his room to Skype.  When class ends each night, he has another 1-2 hours of physical training Monday-Thursday which usually gets him back into bed about 0100. This has made for a busy schedule as Andrew still has commitments with the performing unit. Being that he has been out of school for 4 years, getting back into learning has been a hard adjustment that he's had to get used to.


Andrew's commitments with performing units has changed since he has classed up.  He now has practice Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 0930 to 1100.  He has colors every other day at 0730; if you remember this is posting the ensign and other flags outside the Megabuilding. He continues to have gigs whenever he is needed but the need has slowed down. When he completed his first 3, he decided to qualify for "team 3rd's".  This means more responsibility much like a promotion in a job. The test consists of an hour oral board with a drill master while maintaining impeccable military bearing. He has done a total of 9 gigs which means with one more he qualifies for "team 1st's" which is the highest achievable rank in performing units.  He made a decision not to test for "team 2nd's" until after ATT is completed so he can focus on his studies.  "Team 2nd's" and "team 1st's" are in the near future. 

As you can see, all of this takes up a lot of Andrew's time.  On the weekends he spend a large majority of his time with Williams, a Navy buddy from Pennsylvania.  They see a lot of movies, go golfing, and go to small local restaurants. Andrew has enjoyed local events like the Jazzfest, Crawfish festival, car show, and Art in the Park. He has tried some southern style cooking like crawfish, poboy sandwich, and steamed crawfish (you suck the juices out of the head). 

That sums it up!  More to come when his second round of classes (AWAT) begins.