my life, my thoughts, my world.

I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas, and has an excellent New Year’s Eve when it comes around.

2008 will probably always be the year in which I went through the greatest number of changes, I’m almost hopeful that such is the case. Change should certainly be the word of the year, so I’m a little disgusted by using it here to describe my own year but I think I’ll survive. To ring in 2008, I believe there was some artillery fire. I was nearing the end of my second tour in Iraq, as well as the end of my involuntarily extended time on active duty. Come the end of April I moved out of a tent in the middle-of-nowhere Iraq to a familiar barracks back in Ft. Benning, GA. Some five or six weeks later, my truck was loaded up for another move, this time to San Marcos, TX. At the same time, I transitioned from being an active duty soldier, to a member of the Texas Army National Guard, as well as a college student.

Everything went fairly smoothly, there were some hitches with the Army, and there have been some hitches with the National Guard. Neither seem to be able to pay people on time, but that is unsurprising after five years of active duty service. I ended my first semester at Texas State University with a 4.0 GPA, and also passed the GSP to earn myself full-major status with the Mass Communications department. All in all, 2008 was a good year for me. Sure, there was a lot of stress, but that’s life.

I’m looking forward to 2009. I’ll start the year with a perfect GPA, and intend to keep it that way. In October, I will complete my Military Service Obligation, and be a civilian for good. The VA will decide on my disability rating, and in August the new GI Bill will make my life a little easier. It should be a good year.

Today I enjoyed (or slept through) my last regular class of the semester. Right now, it looks like I’ll actually have to try pretty hard to not end my first semester here at Texas State University with a 4.0GPA. Out of the several colleges and universities I’ve attended since Fall ’01, I do believe this is a first. My American Literature course is the only one in which I need to score over a 40% to get an A, and even then I only need a 66% on the final. Now I just have to keep it up for the rest of my semesters here.

For those of you (mostly friends and family) wondering what my holiday plans look like, I wouldn’t expect to see me in the Houston area very much. I know this is my first Christmas/New Year’s in many years where I’m not either in Iraq, or preparing to go to Iraq. Right now, I’ve got a lot of VA appointments here in Central Texas, and most of them happen to be right before Christmas. It doesn’t make any sense for me to drive to Houston for a day, drive back to Austin, drive back to Houston for two days, drive back to Austin, and so forth. I should be back in Katy around the 23rd, just in time for Christmas festivities; I’ll also be heading back to my place after that to spend New Year’s in Austin.

That about covers my bases for now, I’m sure I’ll think of more later.

The last two weeks have been packed with exams, essays, term papers, and all the other things that drive college students to madness. At last, the end of the semester is within reach. The few classes I have left won’t really cover much more than the standard “make sure you study for the final.” Once I finish my guard drill this weekend, I have basically a week of nothingness before my actual finals. Somehow my the last two days of finals here happen to be the days on which my finals were scheduled, I’m thrilled about that. Since I have VA appointments here in Central Texas immediately after finals, I probably won’t be heading back to the Houston area until around December 23rd at the earliest. I may also be heading back to San Marcos early in January to cover some bases here before the semester begins.