The Glass Box

I've been having fun and settling down into my new job. I'm feeling a bit better all the time and I'm not looking over my shoulders for my trainers displeasure anymore. I'm relaxing a bit more as well and dealing with various situations. I had a guy ask me if we could hurry up the traffic stop process since he was late for work. That is why he ran the red light I stopped him for it seems.

That caused my first real burst of 'wtf' that I've had doing something like a traffic stop.

So he got his ticket and I sent him on his way. I honestly think he was surprised and he wanted to explain to me why he ran the red light. I told him I didn't really care why and that he could go.

I gots me a Springfield XD 40 cal subcompact in 2 tone. The photo is of a 9 but the gun is identical cept for the barrel.

I'm thrilled. Went to the massive gunshow they have every few months and found a vender with it 100 dollars cheaper then the lowest price I had found online or IRL and 150 lower then one vender who wanted 600 for it. The tag said 499, I told Tim that we were getting it and then they knock another 50 off of it. Be still my heart and all that good stuff.

Now I have a great off duty carry.

If I'm in my cruiser, off duty, I still have to do stuff. I don't just drive it around like its my car, I was on the way to work and needed to do a few errands on the way. That I am allowed to do. That is how I found myself blocking in a car that was parked in a handicap space and snarling at the driver who was had been told that it would only take 5 minutes to fix their phone and there was no parking.

Five rows down there is parking. Now there is a big white police car with a pissed woman with a gun and a badge on her hip and five hundred dollars that is no longer in your pocket becuase you did not wan to walk down a few isles of parking spaces (they don't pay me btw, just in case some random person thinks the police are extortionists). That nice handicap one was right in front of the store so why not use it? No one else was.

I'm waiting for Dragonage to finish downloading downstairs and I am going to start watching White Collar and see if it is any good. Assassin's Creed 2 next week.

The cop thing is weird. My first solo weekend went well my supervisors are happy with me. It rained a lot which dimmed some of the holiday festivities. It is an odd experience between feeling like I have a clue and feeling like I don't. Each situation is new and exciting. They say it takes about 1-2 years to get comfortable with what you are doing since the training is just to teach you the basics.

I'm tired however, from the switch. I had planned to stay up all night but I think I am going to let the dogs out and go lay down and just rest.

Since my third training spat went horribly horribly wrong because I could not get along with the trainer, or more correctly, he despised me, I wound up extended an extra few days so that I could prove, with someone else that I was not the incompetent nit wit he had described me as. It's been horrible, I've been miserable, but it is now all over, or at least it is supposed to be, thank god.

I can't say that I am happy in general. Having someone treat you like complete shit and being stuck at their mercy sucks.

Right now I'm trying to stay awake to help me switch over to a midnight schedule. Blah.

Normally I try to post regularly, but really I haven't had the energy. I do post some on face book but mostly I play games off of it. It is not the same as my blog.

I have been having quite a hard time of it seeing that I do not get along with my trainer. In fact, he thinks I suck and he has encouraged me to quit several times. It has been a miserable month and it is affecting more then my work performance but also home life as well.

I wound up having to go to my supervisors and complain. Things are working out, I'm passing the program, but all the joy and happiness of being so near to release has been sucked out of me. I am quite miserable. I am very tired of being in a training environment. Ten months is just way to long for me. To long to have someone hanging over your shoulder eying your every action and writing detailed critiques every single day.

I don't want to got o work tomorrow. I've reached that despondent point where you start to feel ill and miserable about everything.

I should, at least, be getting my car back in a few days once its finally repaired from the deer incident.

But boy, am I ever just depressed in general.

I find that I don't have a lot to say that might be worth posting. My days are consumed by work and my days off consumed by personal doubts, worries and stress related to work. I'm a big repetitive cycle fro the most part and I hope that I will be able to stop and find some type of relaxed balance when I finish training.

I have traffic court today. I was terrified but it went well. More things to experience, things to have experienced, and things to learn. I am tired of being worn out all the time. Tired of training. Tired of being tired. Bitch bitch bitch, moan moan moan. I find the responsibilities that I worked so hard to gain very heavy.

How do people abuse power so casually.

Or is my personality flawed to see it as such an immense weight.

I have my first court date next tuesday. I'm rather nervous but for now I am working at making sure all my paperwork is together. I only have six people on my docket but that feels like a lot to me. I don't have transcripts for everyone so I am going to go and pick that up in case the judge asks.

Ack.

It is like 4:30 in the morning. My car is half packed. I need to put my uniform shirt together and load up my vest and I can head off to work. I actually like day shift. It is pretty busy. I don't like how stressed and tweaked out I still am. I'm not relaxing and getting into the grove. I probably get more wired and worried by the day. I wish I could live in the now instead of being absorbed by what I don't know.

The good news is that I sent Kahn to rescue. I had to burn a day off and wade through weekend beach traffic to do it which sucked but he is gone which does not suck. That bit of saga can come to an end now. Again, I have my own house and my own dogs. I don't plan to take anything in voluntarily again.

After like 20 years I think I'll pick up music again. Not playing the piano but I'm going to try the violin. I wish, sometimes, I had not stopped playing the piano. I was rather good. However, the shy frightened child that I was could not stand the forced public recitals that we had to do. After the first one, when I ran off stage crying and threw myself in my mothers lap shaking and hiding from being seen by other people (threatened by the music teacher and being to young to tell her to go blow) I completely and totally refused to continue playing. I didn't even do a bad job. I just couldn't take the fact that I was the center of the public eye. Mom learned from that one and never made me do something like that again.

If I had never been forced to play publicly I think I would have continued to play because I liked it. I was very enthusiastic until that day. I knew how to read music and all that good shit. I often look at pianos now and play the few things I still remember if I have a chance. Its a good way to relax IMO and now that I can stand up for myself I'll give it a go again.

The random/new(?)food pyramid seems to think that milk is an important part of my diet to be a healthy person.

The whole you need milk to be healthy thing is bullshit. Sure as a small kid maybe, but we did not evolve sucking the nipples of bovines to grow up.

I so sleepy! Yay me!

I went back to sleep today after putting autumn outside with Nyx and Nox and Daemion. That let her run around in the dog run for 3 hours while I slept and burn off some evil puppy energy.

I'm sleepy. So sleepy. I'm just worn out from training. I am so stressed I feel wound up tight as a board. I even have tension in my chest. Just tense worried fear. The worst part is that everyone tells me I'm doing fine, doing great, and a bit ahead of where they want me to be so I ened to calm down and relax. I'm on edge constantly.

I start dayshift on Friday. I need to settle down and sleep and get my schedule flipped around.

I've cleaned a lot this weekend. I'm pleased. The closet is nice and clean and vacuumed. The bedroom is all decluttered and neatish if one does not look on top of Tim's chest of drawers or my end table. There is one laundry basket in it and I'm not yet willing to give that up although Ti would like to. My work office is mostly organized. I've gotten a file folder to hold my paperwork that I think I will take with me instead of using the metal clipboard. I got a plastic clipboard with a stronger clip as well. The metal clipboard bit a chunk off of my finger the other day, blah. I have plenty of regular folders in the file cabinet to keep track of what I have done.

Also some clear page protectors for my documents that have to go to court. I have two traffic court dates, a juvie court date and a criminal court date over the next 2 months. I'm nervous since I've not really had to go to court before but I have to start somewhere.

Two more days of step one. My second meeting on tuesday. A little bit nervous and such but I'm okay I think. I'm at least wading through it all. Its a lot to settle in on. I'm glad for my new vest. At least I'm more comfortable.

Right now I don't think I want to wind up on evenings on a perm basis. I don't like the hours. I like not having to get up early but I just don't sleep well. I'm going to bed later and later every day. I think right now my choices will be midnights, days and then evenings. I'm not a day person but the schedule sits with me better.

Beyond that I've been reading a lot. I need a lot of down time from work right now. I've not put my paperwork away yet. I want to but I'm just worn out. I will soon I think. It is all in a neat pile on my desk. I need to see what transcripts I need to pick up still for traffic court so I'll see as I approach my court date.

I watch HGTV for ideas for the house. It has been useful and I'm getting there with organizing the house. However, some of this stuff is just insane. The 'things' buyers want. Sure, many of us want more space but they walk into these massive rooms and go 'gee its a bit small' and its 800 square feet of just bedroom and bathroom.

Crazyness.

The Great Closet Project has turned out wonderfully.

I am amazed at how great the bedroom looks without all the laundry baskets overflowing everywhere. We have places for everything so clean things don't get dirty again before they can be used. It is fantastical.

I was having a rather good sleep earlier when I was woken up by the phone. Fortunately it was Tim telling me he made it to Frankfurt okay. I forgive him for that.

I'm almost done Step 1 of my training. 2 and a half of them to go. I change FTO's next Friday. I'm excited but nervous. My skills are improving as I actually use them but I'm not as confident as I'd like to be. That will come with time I guess. Right now everything is new. There are few things that I have done before. I'm getting used to people lying to me constantly. I was able to solve a hit and run for someone that totaled their car. I had to arrest a very nice lady for a misdemeanor warrant for a mistake she made. It is strange and hard sometimes. The power/responsibility weighs heavily on me. I don't see how anyone can just take it for granted.

But I seem to be doing okay.

Now my other Saga is with Kahn. I finally found a group to take him in. That will not happen until Tim gets back. But that weekend we can take him down there. The breeders are trying to cover their name and smear mine in the process. They say I have not been communicating and I have not been easy to reach and that I will not help them get the dog. I'm quite mad over all of that since it is all untrue. I was turned down with all of my offers to ship the dog or drive the dog to them. Grr.

Work is going okay. I'm about to move to the next phase. There are a lot of worries and thoughts that I have. It is a big adjustment to work style and options and power. I can see how it can be abused or seem to be abused. My new understanding for the court system tells me how little most people really understand it and how things work.

The great closet project is going wonderfully. We kept debating what to do with our spare and empty bedroom. It had been the guest room and it had a few boxes in it but nothing major. We kicked the cats out of the third room upstairs and claimed that for the guest room and my office/uniform room. That left us with an empty room we did not want to give back to the cats. We decided to turn it into a closet. Closet space has been the bane of our life since we moved.

It is working out great. I got a bunch of plastic storage shelves and created three zones inside the room. One for me, one for Tim and one for linens. The king size bed means king size sheets. We have a lot of sheets as well so that we can change them a lot. With the pets sharing the bed and the cats climbing under the covers sometimes the sheets get changed a lot.

It is great and now we have a walk in closet the size of a bedroom with expansion space. There are still some boxes in there but we're working to make it a bit neater.

This whole spare room into closet thing is working out fantastically. I've washed my way through almost half of our backlog of sheets today and put them away. I love it. It is so neat and open and easy to find stuff. I've trashed some old things we had for closet organization and such like a shoe rack for the back of the door and a free standing one. The bottom shelf is now for shoes. The bedroom is opening back up from the baskets and baskets of laundry we had in it. Yesss!

Learning to be a cop is fun if stressful. I had my first 'how are we doing where are we at' meeting. I'm doing well it seems. I need to calm down and relax and go with the flow. Sadly I don't have a relax and go with the flow type of personality. I wish I did. I really wish I did.

I'm trying to embrace the fact that I am doing well and use it to relax me.