Mood:
a-okUnbelievably, we have already finished the end of the first term of ACSC '08. We have four terms throughout the year, so, obviously, three more to go, but it's strange to think that we are already a quarter of the way through this tour...
Last week we completed Management of the Australian Defense Organisation (not a spelling mistake in Australia), and the Command, Leadership, and Ethics models. In completing them, we also wrapped up the overall unit, "Foundation Studies."
CLE was actually pretty interesting. Some of it was the same ol', same ol' we have been getting through military training since the beginning of time, but some of it was pretty cool. We have Commander Lippon, who was the Commander of the USS Cole when it was attacked, and the new U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff come to speak to us. We also had some Aussie big-timers come speak, but I doubt that you would have heard of them...
Technically, the Foundation Studies unit (and thus, Term 1) doesn't end until we are back from our Joint Capabilities tour. We leave tomorrow (Sunday) very early in the morning on a ten day trip around Australia to see thier warfighting equipment and talk to their soldiers. We will see tanks, aircraft, ships, submarines, just a ton of stuff, broken out over three military bases that very literally circumnavigate the whole of Australia. It should be an interesting trip. I just wish Kimberly could come. She can't, but then, neither could Jacoby so it's sort of a mute point.
Once we return, we will begin Term 2 - Strategic Studies.
Last night (Friday), we had the McKaskills over for "Pizza and a Movie Night." I went to Pizza hut, the McKaskills, and Bobby (friend of Jacoby's from school, also an American) came over, and we all ate and watched 300, which the McKaskills hadn't seen. All in all it was a good night, which ended around 11p, which was fine, because....
Today was my first Adventure Race. Think Eco-Challenge. All in all, the course was about 24km on mountain bikes, 9km on foot, 3.4km in a kayak, and another 300m or so swimming. It was a tough race! We were in the slow group, since two of the three of us had never done it before, so we started early in the morning. The guys truly competing started an hour later. Anyway, we started at around 10a and finished around 2p. Roughly four hours and change! We actually led (the slow group) for about 2-3 hours of the race. Then we couldn’t find one of our checkpoints and fell back pretty far. Because of all the cross country bush-breaking we had to do to finally find the point, one of the guys (Brett Chandler, the one with experience) had a blow out on his bike. By the time we got that fixed and made our was through the rest of the course to the finish line, we were still right up close to the front. Kimberly and Jacoby were there and said we finished around 10th for the day, but the novice course(much shorter distances) was also finishing, so we don't know what that means for us. Also, the fast people hadn't got there, yet. Officially, we'll find out how we did via e-mail, once it's all compiled. I'm extremely happy with our team's performance. By the way, it was me, Brett (an Aussie), and Phillip (a Brit). I'm not sure of Phil's last name.
We have figured out Jacoby's hockey season! He will get to compete/learn while he's here! He will play for the Canberra Phoenixes, or something close to that, on their travel team. That means that we'll be making regular trips up to Sydney for games. He will also have several home games, of course. Big fun for Jacoby. -And Kimberly, who will have to drive him to a lot of practices on Mondays and Tuesdays to come. The actual season starts on 11 March.
That's about it for this week. Sorry, no pictures. I'll write more after the Capabilities Tour.
- Ryan
