Day 25

Today was a nice change of pace.  I still woke up early to eat breakfast, but then it was pretty leisurely after that.  We theoretically had someone that was going to inspect our barracks, and then we'd be free to leave on liberty, but I don't think anyone ever stopped by.

I spent the morning working on my MPH application questions and I filled out a great deal of the Army's Health Profession's Scholarship worksheet.  It seems to be very similar to an SF-86 for the security clearance, but this is specific to the Army Medical world.  I still need to look up old addresses, social security numbers, and addresses for references and whatnot.  But anything I do now should help the process later.

I caught the shuttle over to the PX (Post Exchange) around 11am.  It took about 30 minutes to get to the other side of the base, but I don't have much else to do!  I got a few odds and ends, like a set of locks, a set of sheets, a head light, etc.  These are all recommended things to have for arriving in Kuwait, mostly.  I'm not sure I mentioned this before, but there is no power or AC in the bathroom trailer.  Fun times.

But I got a couple pieces of pizza for lunch, which tasted pretty good.  Right after I had finished eating, I heard from Emili.  She had safely arrived in Minnesota for the conference.  But then I came back and packed up some more stuff.  It's hard to believe they've given us this much junk!

After an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, I went to dinner here.  Nothing very exciting: chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes with gravy, broccoli with cheese, a salad, and some banana pudding.  While not remarkable, it was free.  So that's always a good thing.  After dinner I went for a walk around the paved track.  The lights do not work, so it was getting dark.  But I clearly saw a couple bats flying around which was neat.  Then, I almost stepped on a large frog hopping across the path.  I picked him up, checked him out, and then I let him go.  Hopefully he doesn't get stepped on!

Currently I'm checking out some powerpoint presentations on veterinary histology from Virginia Tech's vet program.  I came across it one day online, so I downloaded it all for later viewing.  Don't you just love wget?

In other news today, Dennis Ritchie died.  For those of you who don't know that name, he was the creator of the C programming language and an early, key contributor to the Unix operating system.  While you may not know how to program in C, chances are that much of the software on your computer was written in C.  I think it would be fantastic to make such a mark on the world...but instead, here's another picture of our frog buddy.