melanie143

Okay, so I’m off to buy supplies (shoes, clothes) tomorrow…
From what I’m reading, it sounds like a 15 hr round-trip hike? So if I get there at like 3 am? 3 am!?

Plan on studying intensely for next 3 yrs as my college major!
Got my work cut out for me, I know. Hopefully will master the alphabet in the next 3 months!!

So…I completed the goal of getting into/going
But I maybe should have made it “Graduate from USAFA”
because I left after BCT and the first semester as a 4*

I hated BCT and barely scraped by. After A-Day, things got better.
Thank goodness I met amazing wonderful people because they made it tolerable. I finally passed the PFT, classes, ands and the dreaded K-Tests. My uni was always alright and I got just enough sleep. I was never awesome super-cadet, but I wasn’t on the bottom or getting singled out like some people. I knew which (many) rules to break and how to do so sans many consequences.

But it wasn’t enough. I got major anxiety with certain things—even seeing the chapel when returning to the base. It was one of the worst feelings ever to feel so out of control when I was supposed to be finding myself and feeling committed to something that I wanted. Grades fell and I gave up. I knew that even as an upperclassman, I would feel like I was missing something. It took me ages to tell my parents and fall from my only redeeming grace. I have 2 grads and an NCO for parents (AF all of them) and that was the only thing that made me good enough to be their daughter.

I did it though. It still hurts giving up something so big like that. My parents kicked me out after living at home again, but I plan on college and ROTC now. I even think about trying to get in again in a year maybe. But while I learned to really like/understand the mil, I cannot take the science core of academics and the lack of freedoms. I had enough of being grounded in high school thanks. And being a 23 yr old in tiny dorm, grounded, being told where to sit for lunch? I still wish I didn’t have to leave—I loved the tradition, challenges, rewards, close-knit friendships, and common bond you share with all grads over everything you hated but somehow survived…not to mention never to share that gold class/squad 6 with my parents. It’s not a good place to be, but a good place to be from! :)