2 Weeks

I have two weeks until I leave for Basic Combat Training. All summer I've been preparing for basic, and it's been tough. I have made some progress, but BCT is still going to be tough. When I first signed my Army contract in April, I could hardly do one decent push up. Now I can do almost twenty push ups with good Army form. It doesn't sound like a lot, but the Army only requires a female to be able to do 3 in order to qualify to ship to BCT. When I signed I knew that the highly physical aspect of the Army would be hard for me, but as BCT nears I'm really nervous that I'll be able to do what I have to. Even though I'm nervous, I'm excited too. It's a new adventure that I never thought that I would embark on and I am going to be so proud of myself when I have conquered the challenges of BCT.

Because I'm going to BCT in the fall, I'm lucky enough to be able to come home for two weeks during BCT. Another highlight of joining the Army is that I'll get to spend a year in sunny Monterey, California at the Defense Language Institute. I won't know what language I'll be learning there until after BCT. I have an inkling though. 70% of the people at DLI learn either Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, or Korean. Any of those languages would please me.

So my Army adventure begins in a couple weeks, and life in general is going pretty well.

John and I got engaged!

We've been dating for almost three years and even though it'll be hard to be apart from each other, we know that we want to be together. We aren't sure when we are going to get married. It's hard to plan ahead because of how unpredictable Army life is. We are thinking possibly a small beach wedding in California next year while I'm in Monterey or a larger wedding two years from now at home after I'm done with training. But I'll keep you all posted as soon as we've made up our minds.

I hope to see everybody before I leave and wish me luck!