Back to the Grind

Met with my ASCI 604 class (the human factors class) for the first time last night. As par for the course in my life, I'm the only girl. There're only five student in the class: me, three active duty AF guys, and one guy who works for Orbital Sciences, the civilian company I'm trying to get an interview with. I'm definitely the newbie to the system, but they were cool. The instructor for this class is not bad, a little softspoken (I had trouble hearing him a few times) and teaches almost directly from the textbook which has its good and bad points. I'm not insanely behind or out of my league in this class either, which is nice. The topic isn't insanely interesting to me (basically, it deals with how humans work with systems), but it's okay. A couple of the guys (one of the AF guys and the OS guy) are also going to be in my ASCI 512 class, and they said that the instructor for that class is really cool. "The real thing," is what they said, so now I'm intrigued. That class (Space and Launch Operations) is the one I'm most interested in and also the one that I think will be the hardest and the most out of my league in. It starts next Friday and goes through next weekend, and then the weekend after that I have my first drill with the ANG. I think I'll be doing a lot of PT, coffee runs, and taking out the trash for a while, being the lowest on the totem pole there. At any rate, I'll be spending plenty of time on a military base in the near future.

In the meantime, I'm actually kind of enjoying working at the bookstore. I'm just working a register for a few weeks to help with the start of semester rush, so it's pretty simple to pick up. I was supposed to be working the morning shift, but on Wednesday they asked me to move to the afternoons because they needed another "capable" person there and are willing to work around my schedule so I can get to the base on time for class. I started that shift today, and I never thought I'd say this, but I actually really prefer the morning shift. It was nice to get up, go to work, come home, do homework or nap, and then go to either ERAU or martial arts classes. It was nice. Plus, even though the shifts are the same time length and about the same busy-wise, the afternoon just DRAGS. And I'd rather open the store than close it. But the girls I work with are nice enough, and like I said the job doesn't take too much brain power. They close early on Fridays, so most of the temps aren't working tomorrow, but they asked me to do a 10:00a-3:00p shift, so no long weekend for me.

In knitting news, some the PCPA knitters have begun taking over the new Panera here in Santa Maria on Tuesday nights. This past week, we had over a dozen of us there, including two guys! It was fun to see everyone again and get caught up on all the gossip. My blanket is progressing slowly - it's already reached the every-row-is-interminably-long stage, but it's still pretty cute.

Anyway, have to work tomorrow and then sparring. I have big plans to spend the weekend doing homework, writing papers and reading textbooks. The joys of being back in school...