Howdy. Its Wednesday January 26th 2011, approximately 10:33pm. I just completed my 5 hours of studying for the night... Well kinda five hours... took Reese on a short run, ate some food. Things have been going pretty well all things considered. I think I left you last time with a brief rundown of my first day of class. Today was my fourth day at the academy... yesterday was my first day of EMT training. Monday Wednesday Friday are fire school days and tuesday thursday are EMT days. On fire days I have to get up at 5am...We have to be at school, dressed, and ready for PT (physical training) by 7:20. As class prez I am responsible for leading stretches. As you may recall from my previous posts I was pretty conce rned about PT and how I would do with the fellas. WELL.... turns out I didnt have much to worry about at all. I was totally and completely shocked after our first PT last friday. There are guys in my class who struggled mightily just to get through the warmup. It is not an exaggeration to say that of the 30 recruits in my class I am physically in the top 6 or 7... Its seriously baffelling how out of shape some of these people are. Cant do pushups, cant do basic cardio, cant walk and chew gum... So with all that said I am feeling MUCH better about dominating the physical aspects. Class on the otherhand is a bit more nerve racking. On fire days we are in class from 9:30 to 5 and EMT days from 8-5. So you can imagine how much information they are throwing at us in that time. Pretty overwhelming. I aced my first two fire quizez on wednesday and have my first EMT quizes tomorrow. We have at least one quiz everyday and if our grade average drops below 75% we can be removed from the program (eeek)
We were issued our bunker gear today (fire pants/coat/boots) as well as our respirator facepiece. It was quite interesting trying to find shit that fit me properly but worked out pretty well since I ended up getting nearly new equiptment. We will be getting our first hands on experience on friday when we get out the SCBA (self-contained-breathing-apparatus)... which we just call air paks usually. I will bring my gear home this weekend and try to get a picture up maybe... I havent actually seen myself in it so Im a little courious myself.
The routine is getting rather diffucult already... getting up early. being in class ALL day. studying ALL night. But hopefully now that we have drudged through the kinda boring beginning stuff it will get easier. The program is almost exactly 4 months long so to cater to my meathead-jock tendencies I am breaking it down into quarters. If you start a game slow in the first quarter you generally F**k yourself for the whole game so Im trying desperately not to start flat. Studying is like practice... if you learn your plays you win... if you're prepared you win. So Ive just gotta stay my ass at practice and win this bitch. All I do is win win win no matter what.
love
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Academy Day 1
Well folks day one is in the books. Went pretty well. Mostly orientation stuff. I am happy to report I was selected by my peers to be the class president. This basically means my workload will now double. Im not sure what all my responsibilities will be but the Chief assured me its a large responsibility. Which I guess is good but I also learned today that I am only one of eight people in the class who have not taken the EMT part of the program. So this means I will have class M-F while the majority of the class will only have class M-W-F. My plate is more than full. Im hopefull I can handle it as I basically voulnteered myself to be president....otherwise I will get removed from the position and duck out with my tail between my legs.
Im not as worried about the fitness stuff...I am pretty confident I am in better shape than atleast half the class (30, 26 men-4 women) And one girl is even smaller than me which I definately didnt expect.
Lots to read so I gotta go. Hoping for a snow day tomorrow so I can try to get my mind around all this work.
love
Im not as worried about the fitness stuff...I am pretty confident I am in better shape than atleast half the class (30, 26 men-4 women) And one girl is even smaller than me which I definately didnt expect.
Lots to read so I gotta go. Hoping for a snow day tomorrow so I can try to get my mind around all this work.
love
Monday, January 17, 2011
Game on...
Well the big day is finally here. Fire academy day 1 is Wednesday at 7:30am. It has been such a long time coming for me. The process to get in the program is painfully arduous... physicals and applications and vaccinations and waiting lists and financial aid... I began the process like a year and a half ago so its pretty surreal for me right now. My recent unforeseen life changes are weighing especially heavy on my heart the last day or so... Its funny how we all know life will never ever go according to plan but we still struggle when things don't follow our vision. This is certainly not the way I saw myself spending the days leading up to my first day and I'd be lying if I told you it wasn't hard. But just as we all know things will never ever go according to plan we also know that with change comes opportunity. I have before me such an incredible opportunity to find out what I'm made of... self discovery is nothing short of inevitable as I begin to write the next chapter of this crazy life of mine.
I am so blessed to have such a great group of people in my corner. My family and friends have been so supportive and encouraging as I have become increasingly more anxious about starting the academy. Nervous is kind of an understatement. I have been in a lot of high anxiety situations as an athlete (national tournaments..super bowls..Johnson county parks and rec flag football dynasties)but the nerves are different now. Sports are sports and always meant a lot to me but this is my life... the outcome will have a legitimate impact on the rest of my life. The pressure is pretty intense. The unknown is whats really got me shaken up right now. I don't know anything except to show up in uniform at 7:30. I'm such a psycho planner-aheader so not knowing whats going to happen is driving me crazy. Everything you can think of is running through my head... Am I in good enough shape? Will I be able to hold my own with 35 grown men?? Do I remember how to read? I'm not saying I'm not confident... To quote Lil Wayne "..confidence is a stain they can't wipe off" Clearly a lack of confidence has never been a problem for me. I'm just nervous.
I was out with some friends yesterday and I was talking to a girl I had just met about school. She was asking me questions about it and then she says "Isn't there like a height requirement? Aren't firefighters like six foot 220 pound guys?" So I kindly explained to her that there is not height/weight requirement and that we will all have to pass the same tests. I just know people are going to take one look at all 5ft nothin-125 pounds of me and think I'm a joke. And I hope they do. I hope everyone sleeps on me. Yeah I look 17, yeah I'm a touch on the petite side, but I'm also the biggest don't-judge-a-book by-its-cover Bitch they will probably ever meet. I love having doubters... It makes success all that much sweeter. I told some friends this over the weekend...But remember in fifth grade when you have to write out what you wanted to be when you grow up? Well my goofy little ass wrote that I wanted to play in the NFL or be a firefighter. So four years of semi-pro football later I find myself knocking on the door of my second "what I'm gonna be when I grow up". I think that's pretty awesome.. there aren't too many people who can say they did what they set out to do in fifth grade.
I read this quote that's pretty perfect for me...
"Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.” I am so excited about where I'm going and what I will become.
Much love to everyone... thank you for the support. At the request of my B I will try to post a little something a couple times a week to keep you all abreast. <--- ha, I said a-breast :)
I am so blessed to have such a great group of people in my corner. My family and friends have been so supportive and encouraging as I have become increasingly more anxious about starting the academy. Nervous is kind of an understatement. I have been in a lot of high anxiety situations as an athlete (national tournaments..super bowls..Johnson county parks and rec flag football dynasties)but the nerves are different now. Sports are sports and always meant a lot to me but this is my life... the outcome will have a legitimate impact on the rest of my life. The pressure is pretty intense. The unknown is whats really got me shaken up right now. I don't know anything except to show up in uniform at 7:30. I'm such a psycho planner-aheader so not knowing whats going to happen is driving me crazy. Everything you can think of is running through my head... Am I in good enough shape? Will I be able to hold my own with 35 grown men?? Do I remember how to read? I'm not saying I'm not confident... To quote Lil Wayne "..confidence is a stain they can't wipe off" Clearly a lack of confidence has never been a problem for me. I'm just nervous.
I was out with some friends yesterday and I was talking to a girl I had just met about school. She was asking me questions about it and then she says "Isn't there like a height requirement? Aren't firefighters like six foot 220 pound guys?" So I kindly explained to her that there is not height/weight requirement and that we will all have to pass the same tests. I just know people are going to take one look at all 5ft nothin-125 pounds of me and think I'm a joke. And I hope they do. I hope everyone sleeps on me. Yeah I look 17, yeah I'm a touch on the petite side, but I'm also the biggest don't-judge-a-book by-its-cover Bitch they will probably ever meet. I love having doubters... It makes success all that much sweeter. I told some friends this over the weekend...But remember in fifth grade when you have to write out what you wanted to be when you grow up? Well my goofy little ass wrote that I wanted to play in the NFL or be a firefighter. So four years of semi-pro football later I find myself knocking on the door of my second "what I'm gonna be when I grow up". I think that's pretty awesome.. there aren't too many people who can say they did what they set out to do in fifth grade.
I read this quote that's pretty perfect for me...
"Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.” I am so excited about where I'm going and what I will become.
Much love to everyone... thank you for the support. At the request of my B I will try to post a little something a couple times a week to keep you all abreast. <--- ha, I said a-breast :)
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Bloggin it...
I figured for my first post I would just take a second to reflect on why I am writing this here blog. In less than a week I will begin an intensive four month program to become a firefighter. With that being said my habitual use of facebook will be drastically limited... (insert blog here) I think it will be much easier for me to chronicle my journey and keep my loved ones updated this way. It wont be exclusively about school, but more about me and what/how I'm doing. I make no promises of correct grammar, spelling, insight fullness, humor, etc...
I assume the people who are reading this understand my blog title but in the event its not clear I offer the following...
antics
I assume the people who are reading this understand my blog title but in the event its not clear I offer the following...
antics
n pl antics [ˈӕntiks]
odd or amusing behaviour
also see..
antics
plural noun clowning, tricks, mischief, frolics, escapades, foolishness, tomfoolery
(definitions and synonyms from thefreedictionary.com)
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