Introductions

Destiny Cropps wrote:

Sure harass away

pandora's BOX! what HAVE YOU DONE!!!?

Hi, my name is Phil, 25, and I am from New York. I also joined this game because of the Gamestop thing. I like this game so far. Nice to meet you all.

hi, i'm m0nde and i live in canada. not much more to say right now except, "hello".

My name is really not important so Aes will have to do. I'm a 20-year-old Canadian art student on vacation.

Ehhh... like a lot of people here I play video games (loving Ninja Gaiden 2, and replaying both Assassins Creed games, at the moment). Other than that I'm a very boring person who sits there and reads, draws, and watching Discovery/History channel when I don't feel like playing on the computer or 360/wii.

Nice to meet you all. =]

Edit: ha ha.. another person from Canada posted while I was writing this one.

Greetings! I am an American expatriate currently working in Taipei, Taiwan. Happy to be part of the team.

Hey guys, it's really cool to hear from all of you. Looks like we have tons of people from all around the world. Happy to have you guys on the team!

Hello everyone.

I'm Josh. I'm in the US Navy and currently I live in Monterey, California. It's nice to meet you all.

Hey Josh, what rate? I'm on a frigate down in San Diego, I'm IT.

Smokey is an ex-corpsman turned lovesick pup. :p

And just for clarification, I've never been married, though I am a squid in San Diego. :p

I'm in school for CTI right now. I might not make it at the rate that I am going. The school is rather difficult and I don't have a lot of talent for language.

It's nice to meet fellow sailors who aren't in the same field.

And sorry to hear that you had a bad time with one of ours, Ayistromia.

I was thinking about joining the military once... til I realized I'm fat, hate the idea of boot camp, and am bad at taking orders... but other than that!

Yeah, CTI was my primary choice til they asked me to go Submariner, so I went IT so I could put my knowledge of computers to use. Then I found out all the computers were 40 years old and none of my know-how meant crap. What language are they putting you into? I nearly aced my DLAB and they wanted me to learn Mandarin, I dropped the program before getting out of bootcamp though.

And no, I don't know any Napoleon, though if I see him I'll give a swift kick for you.

@Dustin - If you were ever to go military, you'd learn that they're masters at putting up a masquerade to hide the fact that its just another 9-5. All the yelling and ordering around (moreso in the Navy/Airforce) dies down and you just show up and do what needs to be done. Its by no means AS easy as civilian work, but its nothing like what they try to show it as.

Really? I'm just terrible at taking orders... I mean, I would if i had to, im sure. I just think if i was pushed beyond what i know are my limits in bootcamp, I'd end up getting my ass kicked because I just wouldn't do it.


...or i'd cry. lol

Oh, believe me, I'm trying to stay in. I've been over my routine and study habits multiple times with my chain of command and my teachers. I'm picking things up, just not fast enough. I can read well enough, speak sort of ok, but I don't have the ear for it. Speaking of which, I need to get back to studying and finishing up errands.

Heh, boot camp isn't as bad as it is portrayed. Maybe back in the day it was nasty, but nowadays, it's just tedious. The biggest headache I had in basic was my fellow recruits. Some of them couldn't grasp the concept of keeping their heads down and actually doing what they were supposed to do. Weight honestly wasn't that big of an issue. We had several folks who were somewhat fat at the beginning. By the time it was over, we didn't have a single person who didn't pass the physical readiness test. The whole taking orders thing... Well, I look at it as being no different from civilian employment. Boss tells you what to do, customer tells you what they want or expect you to do, most times neither boss nor customer understand what's involved. But you do it as well as you can anyways. Only difference is that it's a bit harder to walk away from a shitty job in the military.

In my experience, I hated the first week and thought of every way to get out of it, but they're pretty effective in changing that perspective. It cycles from fear/escapism, to roughing it out, to being able to take pride in making it through everything they throw at you.

I will admit I hate my current lot in the Navy and plan to get out when my enlistment is up, but I am very happy to have gone through all this. I think it benefits more than it detracts, but I can't do it for life - it impedes too much with my goals.

Anyway, topic fully derailed welcome aboard shipmates!