hello again

It's been a long time since I posted on here. I think I only post on here when I am sadface, but I wanted to take a moment and reflect upon life. I have been very happyface lately, but also very contemplate. And I am curious to track my growth over time. I think this website would be cool to come back many moons from now. Every year or so I find myself back at this site reflecting at old dumb posts and many times laughing to myself or going... ahhhh yes, I remember that! Since my highschool/middle school life is apparently so interesting, I've decided to continue writing on here for funsies more than anything.... hope it works out! Today for the first time in a loooong looong time, I meditated. I think this is a habit I need to continue to practice. Wow... adult me is boring.

weird and shitty.

I feel very weird and shitty lately, i am not sure why. It's like my brain is broken or something, or I have regressed. I am becoming increasingly more apprehensive in social situation. I don't know why, I feel like there was a time in my life where I was an extrovert. But right now I am just all sorts of messed up and I can't explain or even pinpoint on how I feel exactly or why. I just feel like a lot of failures, and I just feel like giving up. I feel empty inside. I feel like something is wrong. I feel paranoid about everything. I keep ruminating on all sorts of things that should not matter. I feel out of place like no one understands. I feel low. And it's just really a weird, rare feeling overall. I am ready to leave soon. I take vacation in a week or two so that should help. I am starting to enjoy the weekdays more than the weekends. I am starting to find myself avoid human interaction even when it is offered to me, and then sit by myself and feel "lonely." I used to be really positive no matter what, but it's like.. i ran out or something. It's like I'm two different people. And today I am just hypersensitive to everything. Judging everything I do no matter what. I know it doesn't matter, logically speaking, I feel like I don't care but then again I do. I just feel confused, like I have brain damage or something, like the way I am trying to think about things is all wrong, or it doesnt make any sense or it's all just a dream and I'm trying so hard to wake up but I cant. Like something poisoned me... I;m not sure if it is psychological or physiological. I just feel stuck in something. Trapped and I can't get out. Trapped in memories and possibilities that have since fallen by the wayside, and my will has too. I have relinguished control and become a spectator of my own life. I wonder what my shell will do next?

I am so lucky. I have such a wonderful life. I don't understand why I get this way sometimes. I just want to be. I just want to exist.

sincerity.clarity

I rarely write on here anymore. Today is an odd day. I feel lost. I feel sort of lonely, but I continue to distance myself from others. I don't know why. I just feel as if I'm on autopilot a lot lately, and moments of silence and clarity are few and far in between.

If I want to be honest with myself, I still have feelings for Jen. Or do I? Maybe its just the idea, or the pride I had in the simple feat of maintaining a relationship with a girl that I actually found attractive? I don't know anymore. I'm mostly just confused these days. I'm trying to find myself again, trying to figure out myself genuinely.

Lately I find it hard to forgive others for the same behavior that I consistently demonstrate. Maybe it is a form of self-hate. I feel that like the last few years of my life have been a lot about feeding my own ego. About making me look cool... to myself. I'm not sure how to explain it. It's like I have a low-self confidence, and I try everything I can to boost my self esteem, or something.

I'm not sure if its just me or if everyone feels this way. Like they have something to prove. Is it just me? Or does everyone desire to be held in high esteem by others? I remember when I had the title of an Air Force pilot. I was friendly, nice to everyone, humble, agreeable enough on the outside... but there was a shadow part of me that loved the title. A part of me that looked down on others my age who had accomplished "nothing". I refused to acknowledge a big part of life's blessings and luck. I was filled with hubris. It's true that pride cometh before the fall. I felt that I was climbing a mountain all by myself, no help. Doing it single-handedly so I could pat myself on the back all the way up. I looked down on others because my dreams were coming true and theirs were not. I felt that I had deserved it because I was putting in my full effort and they were not. It was like proof that the world was "fair". That effort and character was more important that raw ability, and that my effort, and my character, was somehow better than everyone else's. Pretty dumb huh?

When I started struggling through the program, It confused me. I felt that the rules of the universe had turned on me. I stupidly thought that every blessing I received in life, I had deserved because of my shining character and unrelenting diligence. What a load of shit. A part of me is glad that I have been humbled so greatly, that I have fallen from my high horse. It was a long fall, hopefully long enough that I may remember it for a long time to come.

I wanted to write from the heart today. I wanted to write something genuine, for myself. It's cliche, but I feel that I wear a mask around other people, and I don't have enough time to myself. Even some past entries on here, I put a bit of a spin on to perhaps make me sound more noble, or whatever characteristics I wished to display grandly but have honestly only in small quantities.

I feel that I have no clue as to who I 100% am. I am familiar with different sides to me, but have not recognized a solid pattern. I believe myself to often be genuine and loyal to my friends, but I also have observed of my self a sort of self-righteousness, as if I for some reason am the final judge when it comes to wrong or right, and I am quick to condemn others, while rationalizing my own actions. I also see a lot of anger, envy, and jealousy within myself. I find ways to hate those that have the confidence I lack. I find ways to rationalize their success. "I am confident too.... they are just more successful because they are taller, better looking... etc" I loathe a deep part of me that keeps an attitude of self pity, because objectively I've had an easy life with too many blessings to count, but for some reason it isn't enough. I have everything I need, most of what I want, but still... I wish to leave my mark on this world. I thirst for more and more with every success I experience. It is as if I will never accomplish enough. The pain in my failures feels real, despite how trivial and commonplace these experiences may be. A love lost, a career ruined, cliche shit many others go through. But no. My pain is worth more than yours. My love was true, while yours was infatuation! My career was for noble purposes, while yours was to feed your ego! Me Me Me. Mine Mine Mine. I am more important because I see life through my eyes and mine alone. I wonder if everyone thinks this way, or if I am just broken.

Of course this part of me I am explaining is a bit over-dramatized here in writing. But alas, it still is a part of who I am. One of the many dark sides I try my best to hide each day. I even try and hide it from myself. But maybe all of us have shadows of ourselves to face.

IFS: Step one of USAF pilot training

IFS is designed for people with 0 hour flying.

It is a 3-4 week long program (22 days or more) which includes a solo flight and checkride to gradute within 12 flights. (Plus two bonus elimination flights if need be)
Firehose.

DAY 0
ARRIVAL, CHECK IN, INPROCESSING: Takes about 20 minutes.

Reccomendations:
Be in shape at arrival
Know Boldface and Ops Limits
Have waterbottle and some sort of caffinated drink (i picked up some caffinated lemonade powder at walmart, got me through the briefs)

DAY 1
12 HOUR DAY. MASS BRIEFINGS AND PFT.
PFT was easy. pretty sure everyone passed. I had been running to prep for it though...
We had 9 people fail the boldface/ops limits test. I passed but we all failed as a unit since ppl failed and such..
Flt Com reccomended studying radio calls, local area procedures, and checklist flows to know by tuesday (Dollar ride) also do practice quizzes.

I ate dinner, played some guitar for a bit, and studied. 2 Practice quizzes in Safety and Flt Phys. Read a bit of LFP and now looking over some checklist flow. This is gonna suck.... got a senior pegged to help me chairfly this weekend. just gotta commit to learning the startup procedures, dont wanna fall behind.

DAY 2
Another 12 hr day. exhausting. recommend doing the quizes. submit answers right away to "fail" and just memorize the answers. Trying to guess and understand everything proved to be futile. Keep you eyes on the prize. IFS is like finals week at the academy. Cram only what will be tested. for the AC test, you only need to know quiz answers, not comprehend. For the rest of the program, chairfly in detail...

DAY 3
More AC, finally friday. Drank a bit in the flight room and met some of the other studs. Fun times, but stayed up too late and wasted my saturday recovering

WEEKEND
Fri-Sat:Rest
Satnight- study quizzes
Sunday- study all day. Mostly quizzes.

Next weekend I should try to sleep earlier and have a game plan of what I wanna study, SPECIFICALLY and FOLLOW THROUGH.

Just did a boldface refresher. Should be able to pass tomorrow no problem.

Did some research on other things like concentration, keeping cool under pressure, memorization and rapid learning techniques. Trying to take a critical approach to solving the problem that is passing IFS.

DAY 4
Last day of AC. I began to feel sick today. Perfect timing... dollar ride (1st flight) tomorrow. whoopedee do. Really wish I hit those quizzes at full force earlier. It would have helped alot :/ you live and learn. I need to study MUCH MORE next weekend and the days to come. It seems my peers are pulling ahead. Oh great.

No time to chair fly today... spent all day on quizzes again. GTIMS kept freezing up. Annoying.

DAY 5
First flight was pretty bad. Didn't really know anything. Good thing I didn't have to.

DAY 6
2nd flight. IP says Im in the "middle of the pack." great.

DAY 7
New IP. First flight. he sure loves to brief. getting better a ground ops. had an ok flight.

DAY 8
Had a great flight :) starting to get this stuff down

DAY 9
Monday.... Horrible flight :(

DAY 10-11
No-fly, stupid weather D:

DAY 12
Worst flight to date :( feeling discouraged. IP says its normal for this to happen in the beggining of 300. Id better study a buttload. got my pattern only tomorrow.

DAY 13
Had an OK Flight. didnt study, just vegged out in front of the TV. i think i need to get out of here

WEEKEND
Saturday so far havent been very productive, i just feel lazy i dont know why...
Finally got out of here to see a movie.. i think that helped. hit the books all day Sunday.

DAY 14
New IP Flight to Fowler. So-so flight. need to study pitch pictures and remember to crosscheck/not get fixated on one thing. (ie so fixated on ground track, ip had to initiate cruise check) Funniest thing. realized I need an extra cushion. hopefully tommorows flight will be better when i can see out the cockpit.

DAY 15
First good flight. Need to crosscheck altitude! and that damn mixture...

DAY 16
Pretty bad flight up out to Area 11 and back to Kpub for patterns. Not sure what happened. IP let me slide with all Fs and a G overall he said I was just having a brain fart.

DAY 17
Supposed to have the day off today, then BAM! Surprise solo. bit me in the butt. 20 minutes later i'm briefing up for it, took off and did some good patterns, built my confidence and solo'd away. it was AWESOME. :) Tomorrow I get a real break. Got all week to study for my pre-check, but I'm not gonna fall into that trap! NOoooo.

DAY 18
Friday- no fly. good break.

Saturday- lolygagged around. blah blahh bleh

Sunday- Oh shit my pre-check is tomorrow! better hit the books...

DAY 19-20
Shitty Pre-check
Super-shitty check (schd/profile change last min)

Passed both. done. peace.

ADVICE
As I sit here waiting on my flt com to outprocess. I shall reflect.

When you first get here, before your dollar ride, it would behoove you to go to the P drive and look at the file Technique- Trim. and memorize the pictch pictures, power settings, and trim settings for each straight and level airspeed. I personally struggled with altitude control the whole entire program. It didn't get me kicked out, but it annoyed my IPs :). I would also take the first weekend off to read the entire Local Flying Procedures. Email to yourself, print it out at kinkos and hit up starbucks on saturday morning, just get it out of the way. It will help you understand alot of the proceudures. As for radio calls. Lookup a file on the P drive called "Beagles Radio Calls by Profile". This file is money. I had a small printout in booklet form I took to the CPTs the first few times, then the radio calls just came. Think of them logically. (Who you are talking to, Who you are, Where you are. [And perhaps what you want]).

Just think about it. If you are talking to departure, you need to tell them what altitude you are going to so there are not mid air collisions, (that is what your "where you are" will count as.

If you are talking to approach, they know youve been out a while. As always Denver needs to know your altitude. But since you are coming home after a long grueling mission, they need to know if you have the most current informations. So it makes sense any time you talk to approach you do the first three things, then altidude, information, and intentions (inbound patterns or inbound full stop) Anyways the radio calls will come. You won't have to think twice about them by the end of the program. But if you are struggling with them better nip it in the bud now. If you cant do radio calls on your check thats bad news.

No matter how good your IP tells you you are doing. Keep studying and practicing like you are on your 89. Don't get complacent, there is always room for improvement. (unless you are a prior time hotshot, then you probably ARE that good.)

Get out on the weekends, but get it together when you come back. I found the best thing was to get out on friday, do whatever you want that night, and be ready saturday morning or afternoon to get up and hit those books hard.

I would consider getting a logbook. If you are considering it, just get it now. It will be alot smoother outprocessing when you already have all your signitures and don't have to chase IPs around all day. Im chilling in my flight room waiting forever on my CC so I can outprocess. You can check the Schedule in GTIMS to see when he's likely to be availiable to save time and misery.

BIG THING- Study social. If you see the senior class chairflying, ask if you can sit in. If you are going to the CPTs Chairfly with a buddy! You must talk to others to see how they are doing, and what they know so you know what you do not know! If you think you can study on your own and be fine, you are wrong. People that stuggled here tended to be more intoverted. This is your time to suceed and your career depends on it. Be aggresive in asking for help. I'm done and I am happy to help the junior class with any questions they have or even chairfly with them. I remember being a little intimidated asking for help from the senior class when I came in. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Most people will not mind, and if they do who cares? Buy them some beer and you're even. Your career is on the line, theres no time to beat around the bush with getting help.

Sept 15 and Plans for Sept 16

Productivity: See above. I could have done better. worked on my bed after calling sarah until na called for sherminators bday. then I left and bot back at 130

Plans for tomorrow:
Budget Spreads
Other budgeting stuff

Touch:
RTK
Checklist
L&M
Jpod101
exercise
Dust in the wind

Plans for weekend: Build Hammock stand. Touch above during weekend.
figure out storage under bed
maybe build dresser
Do some 4HWW activities
Do some IFS studying

Shop: Sink scrubber
Storage space (measure)


sweet im gonna sleep on my awesome new bed now. peace.

Tomorrow Thurs 15 September

What I will *try to* do:
Make and eat breakfast at home X
Update Chase Account for bonuses O
Clean common areas O
organize desk X
Call Vegas/Orlando peeps just get details X
SPCA X
go thru budget spreadsheets. link accounts. X
Sleep by 10 X

At work:
Pickup pucks O
Check flt sch O
Make pucks O
Fax options house shit O

Touch:
dust in the wind X
RTK X
Jpod101 X
Meditation X
IFS Checklist O
cookbooks O

Buy:
Square Drive O
Wooden/strong hangars O
sink scrubber X

What I will not do:
Research anything to consume (browse amazon) for more than 10 min per item O

Notes for today
Today Ryan started yelling about dishes. I just realized how much of my shit I leave lying everywhere. cleaned the whole house feeling guilty about how much shit was mine.

Played blackbird for sarah, she was impressed. this made me happy :)

Re-read a bit of 4HWW. nice.

Slept in an hour more than I should have. only did about 3 sets of pusups 3 sets of SLOW 35.
Resolve to do more than that tomorrow, maybe run? Ive decided to pack clothes for SPCA tomorrow

Here's what happened:
What I did look above for Xs and Os. On top of that. I finished my bedframe!!!! YES. +8 (+2)
What I did not do all Xs :( -10
What I did for Physical Development 0
What I did for Mental Development Read 4HWW
What I did for Spiritual Development 0
What I did for Social Development Sherminators Bday

Hopefully these reflection entries will serve their purpose in making me more productive.