I have never lived in the Midwest. I’m a California girl. I like my summers balmy and my winters mild. I like mountains and trees and flowers and geographically diverse fauna! I’m not adjusting well to the flat, ominous, eternal Texas scrub. The grass is brown. The dirt is brown. There are no trees. There are no mountains. Scratch that, there are a few trees but they are also brown. Sometimes, the sky is brown. The weather is capricious. Sometimes, I’ll wake up at 5am for PT and it will be 80 degrees! Other times, I will walk out the door at 7:30am for class and it’s a surprising 28. But these two temperatures look the same from inside! The 80 degree weather will look cold because it’s overcast, and the 28 degrees will look nice because it’s clear and sunny! This is further complicated by the fact that the military, in it’s infinite wisdom and attention to detail, decided to cut corners and cost when constructing our barracks. Namely, the windows in our rooms do not open. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but when your bathroom, fridge and microwave are all in the same room as you, all those smells mingle. It would be a blessing for just a little fresh air! But for efficiencies’ sake, if I could open the window I could accurately gauge how to dress for PT and for school. “Gosh, it sure does look bright and sunny out there! Let me OPEN MY WINDOW and see what it’s like. Oh my goodness! It must be 10 degrees out there! I’m grabbing my coat!” or “Hmm, looks col- NOPE! Feels like 85. Good thing my window opens!”. I get teased all the time from my friends who did not pick a “C” school. These are the folks from my class who actually WENT to the places I turned down. They always tag me in their photos of exotic locals to rub it in. A friend in Naples is particularly mean spirited as he has traveled all around Italy thus far and makes a point of keeping me abreast of how amazing the terrain is, how spectacular the weather is and how fantastic the Roman ruins are. Another friend in Japan taunts me with facebook posts like “cANt WaiT 2ClimB MoUnt FUJI!!!!!”. Le Sigh. They always remember us and often drop lines to say “Hi” and “How’s Texas?”. How’s Texas? I don’t know. My window doesn’t open!
The Naval Medical Education Training Command (METC) is brand new. BRAND. NEW. I am part of the first batch of students to get pushed through here, as such the invariable kinks and bugs have yet to be worked out of the system. The barracks (where we live, nice actually, like dorms) are new and the plumbing has yet to be sorted out. I have not had hot water for two weeks. On Friday and Saturday of this week, we had NO WATER at all. We are at the Flagship Naval Medical Training Facility. No expense of tax dollars was spared. And when I want to flush my toilet, I have to fill it with water I trundled over in my own jug from the schoolhouse. When I was living in Africa doing volunteer work, I lived with a host family. There was no running water in my village. Everyone took “bucket baths”. The concept is simple: Take water. Put in bucket. Go outside. Use cup to pour water over your head from bucket. When I turned on my water on Friday after a sweaty PT session and all that came out was a steady dribble, all I could think was
“I wish I had a bucket”.
Just some pictures of how this place makes me feel. At least most of 170A is in it together!
