The Sounds of Silence…
Sorry about the quiet these last couple of weeks, folks. Navy life bit me hard in the posterior, as you all know. Hopefully things will begin to ease up soon.
Things have settled down a bit now that I’m getting back into a rhythm. I still need to work on it, though, to add things like more time to study Japanese and setting aside time for physical training. We’re getting an operational waiver (again!) for this assessment, but that doesn’t mean I should just sit back and get fat. 😛
Sleep continues to be an issue for me (as the time-stamp on this post may indicate). It’s so difficult for me to get into the habit of going to bed early and sticking with it – all it takes is one late night or two and I’m back to where I began. Wonder if I should speak with a psychologist about it. Being descended from an ethnic group that sleeps through the hottest parts of the day probably doesn’t help, either.
One bit of good news I do have to report is that my writing has been progressing despite the situation. Cutting back on my work in Fenspace was a good call and has left me with more mental bandwidth to focus on other projects. Really, I should honestly only work on one project at a time… maybe two if things are particularly quiet. But anyhow, I’ll be wrapping up Chapter 6 of DSKSWDYHMS over the next week or so here and setting it aside with everything else for polishing edits (thorough spelling and grammar checks) and I’ve already got a modest start on Chapter 7.
Just hope that I can keep things together.
Stress
Lately I’ve been having issues with my creative writing. I’ve been under a lot of stress over the past few days and I’ve had little to no time for it. You may have noticed that I stopped posting for a few days… well, there you go.
I can’t discuss all the reasons as some of them involve ship operations, but for myself I’m under a microscope right now. I’m just fortunate that I have a supervisor that likes to call it a day after dinner. Even with that, though, I’m still under pressure in how I use my free time. The CNO (Chief of Naval Operations – pretty much Word of God short of the President himself) has put out a message that the Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist qualification is now mandatory for all enlisted surface sailors. And this is at a time when the Big Navy is actively looking for reasons to kick people out of the Navy – all in the name of reducing manning, of course.
The President of the United States said that he would not cut back our benefits and that pay raises to keep our jobs competitive with the civilian job market would continue. But the fat has to be trimmed from somewhere.
Here, let me give you an idea of just how serious they are: they have begun to retire posts for personnel in the O-7 to O-10 paygrades that have been deemed superfluous. If you don’t know what that is, these people are Admirals, Vice-Admirals and Rear-Admirals. Think about it for a second and let it sink in: they have begun to retire Admirals early to save money on personnel. Normally, an Admiral doesn’t have to look out for their own ass in such a manner. They’ve earned their chops and the right to remain in the Navy for pretty much as long as they wish so long as their conduct is appropriate. But not anymore. Now Admirals have lost that level of job security and nobody is safe.
Especially not a Third Class Petty-Officer such as myself.
So now, the time has come for me where I have to make tough choices. Really, it’s a no brainer – I want to keep my Naval career because, let’s face it, the civilian job market is dog-eat-dog. The tough part is what it costs me, personally. I don’t have to like it, but I do have to live with it and I have too many good things riding on this.
Sure, I could probably throw caution to the wind, get out of the Navy… I would still have my Montgomery GI Money for school and I can go ahead and roll my Thrift Savings Plan into a civilian 401k, and then I could go to work for my family… but that leaves someone else who is depending on me on the short end of the stick: my fiance who is a Japanese National.
The process for a US Serviceman to marry a JN is a pain in the arse, but it’s even worse as a civilian – especially if you wind up having to do it back in the US, which would be the case for me since without the Navy I have no place in Japan left open to me.
As a man, I cannot and will not ask this of her.
So… my writing sucks because life sucks and I gotta knuckle-under. I appreciate the criticism, but don’t crucify me for it.
Lost in Japan 