The Glass Box

In half an hour I need to go get dressed and head out to work. Yesterday was an observation day and today I will do a lot more and really start my training. However, its pretty cool and I enjoyed myself yesterday. Lots of stuff to remember but not as overwhelming as it felt before I gave it a try.

I need to head out in about 1/2 hour for more training. We finished at 11 last night. My head hurts from a nasty headache. Today we're doing fake ammo scenarios in the later half of the day and learning a bunch of EQ earlier.

I'm sleepy and just don't want to be there. I never used to be big on my weekends but god lately I need my days off and they just keep getting taken from me. I have Friday off and I just want to put my head in cold water.

Instead I'll sleep in and then try to get echo groomed out since shes starting to look like something from under the bed.

Anyway, I'm at my limit with the Kahn thing. I'm about ready to hand the dog over to rescue. No one that says they are going to do anything is actually doing anything if that makes any sense. They make little soft noises to reassure you and make you feel better and then just slide away. No one wants to take responsibility for him and that is just mind boggling to me. I should have gotten mad months ago but I did not have the energy to spare then. Now I do and now I'm very irritated with the entire situation and peoples behavior about this dog.

I'm probably going to wash my hands of the conformation world for a while if not forever. I'm a firm believer that if something makes you miserable you need to change it or get away from it. Conformation has not actually made me happy in a long time. The people, the politics, the egos and everything else. None of those things are reasons that I ever started showing and they just eclipse the positives. I no longer care if my name gets trashed or anything else. I won't be breeding anymore I don't have the personality for it. If I breed anything it will be in name only and then I'm not really sure I want that.

I have some very nice dogs and I've managed to develop a nice bloodline but none of it is making me happy anymore. I it just is not my thing. Competition is not my thing. The behavior of people is to much for me. I think I'm done with it all.

I did it.

All graduated.

Damn.

I'm awake. I just made some oatmeal and tea. I don't need to leave the house till a bit before 6. My uniform is all put together. My gear is all put together. I loaded my gun with my duty ammo last night and today I put all my ammo and the gun itself into my duty belt. What an odd sensation all of that has been.

Graduation is at 10. I have to get there at 7 so we can set up and rehearse. The whole thing should take maybe two hours which is good. I don't want it to take much longer.

I think I took number 2 in the class. I was beat out by the dude that made it halfway through last time and then got hurt. He had already taken the first 5 tests so he scored very high. If I had not gotten that damn 89 on the second test I'd have beaten him anyway. I lost by .3 of a percent. Oh well.

I'm not that excited. I'm more worried, trying to remember if I have forgotten anything. I don't like ceremonies so I'm not looking forward to it. I did, however make sure to smile and put on makeup for my class photo. I ordered a big photo for mom. Bleh. Everyone goes 'but you might want it one day'. I just turned 30 and I still hate seeing photo of myself as a child and a younger person so I think the answer there is no.

And me with a huge smile? Ugh.

And we are done. Today was our last class day. We graduate at 10am tomorrow.

Thanks to the rain water got into the telephone lines and the T1 went out on Wednesday after a nasty lightning strike. Not fun nor not something that makes us happy. We just got it fixed.

Good news is that we got to go visit the new puppy, Autumn. Also, this is my last week of the academy and graduation is next Wednesday.

It is also like I just woke up. About an hour ago I realized how depressed and burnt out I was when I debated shaving Daemion bald including his ears. Now, I've been growing his coat for 6 years. I love my dogs yet everything is so flat and gray that I just want to get rid of anything that causes me extra work.

That actually shocked me a good bit and made me wonder WTF was wrong with me.

I am astonished at how burnt out I am. I also realize that I've been waiting to fail for the last six months. I think that is what has been eating me. I've been waiting to fail like I failed at PG and not get what I wanted. Now I'm so close that I almost can not fail to graduate. My grades are good, I have one practical left and I've passed everything else that is graded.

So, I'm close. Close enough to almost taste it. I don't expect myself to get excited, that is not my personality. However, I realize that I can maybe climb out of this little huddle of impending doom. I can almost say I've made it and in 23 days I will be able to day that. It is 12 class room days and 2 admin days left of the academy.

I managed to overdraw my account like I had something against it. Whoops for not paying attention. Thank god this paycheck has holiday pay in it so it balances it out. I gotta check in at least every other day. I've been sucking at holding my accounts in my head like I used to do with teh academy.

I do hate when someone else comes and ruins my weekend.

Sure not the whole thing but I'm still pissed. Today, I was waiting for my mom to come get her dog. Her plane (from germany to see my brother and his spawn) landed at 4 so I expected her around 5-6.

Nope. 5:30 the phone rings and its her on a payphone. The person that was supposed to pick her up didn't show. She forgot and she was at church right now so mom had no ride home. She had called last night to remind her but her daughter, who took the message, forgot to give it to her. Plus she had been given mom's printed out flight schedule but she still managed to forget.

So I get called. Fucking whoop dee fucking do.

I loaded up Jasper and Dale. No way was going to drive to the airport and take her him and not send her creatures wit her. She appreciated it but it was very hard to be polite. I can't comprehend why she even decided to have someone take her to the airport in the first place. If she wanted a ride that badly it would have made more sense to come to my place and do it that way. I, at least, am reliable. Not that I want that but fuck I get screwed anyway so what does it matter.

It is 1 1/2 hour to my mothers house with no traffic. Add in the airport time and it was 4 hours. Then we had to stop for food becuase I was just about to warm up my lunch when she called. Tim was halfway through eating his.

I'm pissed. On top of it, my brother couldn't make the time to see her for more then a weekend while she was there. Nice. How fucking nice. Sure she goes to see the kid. I hope its worth it for her. People wonder why I have no interest in family. I put myself out for her more then I would almost any other person in the world and it does not leave me happy and gleeful. It pisses me off.

In many ways I had begun the long, stupid process of healing from my time at PG. From learning that lots of people where in no way like me and that people where mean in ways I really didn't understand.

Today was reality based training where they put us in situations and see how we respond to them. And some I was okay and some I was not and it started off horribly. Very horribly. My partner was not on board at all with this when we stated and didn't want to do anything by the book which dragged me down. I tried to correct things and did not do a good enough job. I wound up being told by the instructor that he was glad he was not my field training officer when I graduate. He'd have taken me back to the station, left me there and refused to ever go out with me again on a beat. He was glad we'd not be his backup because we where so bad.

What really pissed me off was when he said I was scared. I was not scared. I was trying to do things in the proper way we have been taught which involves distance and not staying near the person and he said I was acting terrified of my subject and that pissed me the fuck off more then being insulted ever will. I was not scared and I have no problem admitting when I am or when I am unsure of what to do. I'm still sucking at being firm enough soon enough with people.

I've been thorough worse but it still sucks. But I'll do something about him ripping up my skills for doing them as I was told.

We have been cleaning and updating our house to the best of our ability and it is going well. This weekend I'll kick the dogs outside if the weather holds and scrub down the dog areas. They are just dusty and grimy. Brake down all the crates and clean them, wash all the bedding, scrub the floors, dust the walls, dust everything, etc etc etc.

There is a dead black snake in the kitchen. I'll have to go and clean it up soon. They will eat the warm blooded animals (except moles which they eat the feet off of and leave the rest) but not the snakes.

Beyond that, I'm going to try orange in my hallway. A light golden orange. The hallway gets no sunlight and it only has two lights when it needs at least three. I figured a light bright color that is reminiscent of light will help suck up and illuminate it. No, I don't want white! Bleh!

Anyway, we also started taking the cabinet doors off so that we can color the hardware silver and paint the doors and trim white. I wound up ripping off the molding on one piece and I like the clean line all the way to the ceiling. There is a tiny gap which we will Spackle and make go away with a little sanding and paint.

Also, there was this damn piece of Trim over the kitchen window. Like a 4 inch piece that just made a piece of straight molding over the window that I hated so I beat it off with a hammer and unscrewed its supports and POOF the kitchen already looks a lot better and more light comes in. I wish I had knocked that off a few years ago.

My eyes are almost fully mine again. They are sore. The skin on my face and around my eyes and forehead is especially sore. Miserable stuff that OC. Wow. I keep developing little golden/orange crusties on my eyelashes as my eyes eject the granules of pepper. I had to wear an eye mask to not rub my eyes while I slept but the Advil PM knocked me on my ass and Tim said I barely moved.

Today I went to the under armor outlet store and did some of my first purchases for when I am on the street. I got some heat gear bras and tshirts to wear under my uniform. The vest is not exactly well ventilated so teh moisture wicking quality is very good. In the winter I will get the cold gear mock turtle necks.

OC is no joke. I'm almost recovered 23 hours later. I will never, ever use my OC because it is a low level of force and more acceptable. I will have to have a damn good reason. It is pretty bad. It was worse then I expected it to be as well.

They don't just OC us and let us go. We have a short foot pursuit, then they soak us down in OC, make sure count to 10 slowly, run a cone course, do defensive tactics on a bag, prone out a subject at gun point from behind cover, and then you can go.

When I opened my eyes they slammed right back shut and I started whimpering. It felt like I had been stabbed in the eye and then it just gets a bit worse. People are not being wimps. Its bad. We have 10% as well which is the highest that agencies carry. I am boggled at how people work through it.

Everyone is affected differently. My eyes are what are having the hardest time. Some people it was the skin. Today the skin on my face is tight and sore from the chemical burn. Four more weeks to go.

I hate PMSing. I have a headache I feel awful in general. Plus tomorrow is pepper spray day when we get pepper sprayed and then run a little obstacle course and do some things while blinded.

I started reading twilight, its good.

I've also started reading a lot of translated Japanese fiction. The stuff is pretty damn awesome. The differences makes the stories so deep to me.


I also managed an entire two and a half hours last night. Test in the morning, had study grup tonight. I'm tired, my mind is blown. I need to sleep.

I can't wait to the freaking academy is over.

I finally got some photos of my dobie outside. She is now a year and a half old and she has been raw fed since she was three months old. So I figured it would be nice for people to see her grow. There are also a few shots of my GSD who is about to turn 9 and I don't think he looks like an older large breed dog at all.

( pictures pictures pictures )

I got to go shooting today. I liked the Glock 27 and did a decent job shooting it.

Everyone is going out of town but me. Mom is off to Germany to see Rob. Tim had to go to Miami again. I now have Jasper, Dale (moms cat) and my whole crew all alone. Ahh well. I've been working on my study guide for Test six which is on Wednesday.

I'm also going to go to bed soon. Just to enjoy going to bed early and sleeping in. mmm.

Nyx hurt her leg so she has been on rest without being allowed to play with everyone. I do adore her. She is fantastic off lead. It is nice to just go and let her and Nox outside and throw sticks for them without worrying about them doing something stupid like my sight hounds are adept to do.

Five more weeks left at the academy.

Each weekend we're doing a chunk of stuff to just make our house a bit nicer to live in. After four years we have figured out what we want to change and what we are happy with for the most part. This is our green room which I originally painted a very dark green. I like the color but the room does not get any direct sunlight so the color was to dark. We picked a very light green to replace the dark green with and got some storage cubes which we have bolted into the wall to create permanent storage space inside of the room. We will be flipping the TV from its current position to directly across from these little cabinets. I'm happy with how it is turning out.

The yellow wall is the edge of the kitchen. That will be turning a medium gray color and the kitchen cabnets painted white. We picked a gray flecked counter top that we will eventually replace our nasty warm pink tinted one. The last thing to change will be the floor and I'll hire someone for that and I will probably go gray for the kitchen floor.

I also found a bark collar to use on Kahn. The one we had to get for Dixie. He has spent most of today barking and has a howling barking fit every time we go outside. He does that when he has the entire run to play in as well. In general, giving him the smaller run works because he does not have as much to bark at but he still whines constantly and I can't have it. I need him out of my house but that is not going well.

( And the photos )

I must stop buying books, I have enough. I need to write down their names and wait till I have some cash later in the year. I also need to restructure my bills and balance them a bit better. I am paying almost all of them out of one check leaving me with almost nothing when I can split them between both checks and almost have some money.

In general I just need to watch my spending now that I have the law to start paying for again. I will start bringing in a little bit more in July since I'll start getting spattering of overtime and hopefully as the year progresses my paychecks will increase. I get a 2.2k pay raise in Oct when I finish field training and get released on my own. My next big spending thing is new tires for the charger which are rapidly becoming a necessary not just a want.