I cannot believe I am leaving in THREE days. That is cRaZy! Luckily by last night when I got off watch, I was over the stomach bug. I really wouldn't want to spend lots of time traveling, in a helo and in Bahrain with the stomach bug. Luckily, I have survived.
I'm getting really nervous/excited to go to the Nimitz. Why you ask? Well, for one, I FINALLY got relatively comfortable here on ABOT. I am all settled in, I have a great routine, I am qualified and comfortable on the watchfloor and while I don't really have any friends other than Nicole and I don't have anyone to eat meals with or anything, at least there are people that I know that I can make polite, menial conversation with in the office.
I know, I know, there are over FIVE THOUSAND people on an aircraft carrier- surely a few of them will like me, right? Frankly, I am so sick of everyone saying "well you're super social and outgoing, you'll make friends". Here is why I am stressed- yes, there are five thousand people but they are broken up between the Nimitz ship's comany, the air wing, the admiral's staff and the DESRON staff. I fall into the latter category & there are about 30 of us on staff. Now imagine that you worked in a tall office building. I don't know much about that but I will compare it to Dan's last job, my familiarity with his job is pretty much the limit of my knowledge of corporate America. So let's say you work in a really tall high rise building. Your office is about 30 people but the building is 30 stories high. Who do you hang out with? Who do you work with? You have one desk in your office and you move between there and the conference room or maybe your boss' cube. Other than that, you don't go down to the other floors to "mingle" with the other companies. Sure, you see them in the parking garage, or at Flying Biscuit or maybe Yogaberry, but it's not like you know them or socialize with them or meet them. Now imagine you never left your office building at night. That's pretty much how it is on a carrier. We all live in one area, our office is in the similar area and our watchfloor is nearby, we don't work or interact with the other people outside the staff, only over the radio or on chat whlie on watch.
Especially for someone like me who had zero to no interaction with the other staffs. Some people on the DESRON work with people on the Admiral's Staff but I only network down to the other ship's in the strike group, not up to people on the carrier. So that's not TOO bad, right? There are still 30 people that I could hang out with. Unfortunately, I'm learning that the general demographic of DESRON staffers is male, between the ages of 27-33, an O-3, and married with 1.5 kids. Obviously, not my top pick for people to hang out with. Of course I knew this going into a DESRON job that it would be less close as a Wardroom on a ship where everyone is super close and young, however, it never even crossed my mind that I would not be able to leave the ship on a liberty port due to not having anyone to make up a liberty group. Especially because Officers have automatic overnight liberty allowed, certainly the 30-something married men are not going to sign out on liberty with a girl.
This is further exasterbated by the the fact that less than 10 days after my arrival, we have a port visit. Somehow, in 10 days, while trying not to get lost, making sure my boss and others like me, finding my way around and learning my job, I also have to find time to reach outside of the staff and find someone who wants to hang out with me. It's like showing up to the Southampton Middle School cafeteria on your first day of middle school in a school with 2,000 adolescents when you were coming from a fifth grade of 30 people where everyone knew everyone. I think now, 13 years later, I have finally recovered from that traumatic experience. I'd prefer to not have to do it all over again. And being on the Nimitz for only 4 days before my favorite holiday of the year is going to be like imagining your first day of miserable middle school lunch in that big, open, crowded and noisy cafeteria was for Thanksgiving. Sigh.
So basically, my biggest fear of the Nimitz is having to start back at square one and meet people and figure out my job, just when I thought I had it figured out here. ABOT is easy: there's one other female officer, and we don't ever get liberty so it's not a problem. I will live by myself too on the Nimitz until Nicole comes back at the end of January. I don't mind living by myself or eating every meal alone or only talking to people when I'm on watch, but the thought of not being able to leave the ship because I don't have a liberty group is terrifying, frustrating, and down right annoying. I will do my best and probably by the end of January when we leave the AOR and head home, I am sure I may have made some friends. I'll probably try and get involved in cycling classes and yoga classes and some sort of religious group; since those are the only times that you interact with people other than the 30 that you work with. Hopefully there will be some cool pilot chicks that will hang out with me :/ It's just that first port call at the end of the month that has me terrified.
On the plus side, I'll tell you one thing that is NOT going to miss ABOT and that is my FEET! Somehow, a part of my boot has started digging in to the top of my feet. It created this crater-like painful dent on the top of the arch of my foot, and it's like 1/4" deep. Then the skin around it got all wrinkly and red and puffy, like it is infected. Now, somehow it has like created right behind the crater a HUGE mountain on the arch of my foot that is hot to the touch and sticks way up off my foot. It is beyond painful to even have my foot in my boot.Alright, well I have to run to lunch and to hopefully have Doc check out this deformed foot of mine. I have 2 more exciting blog posts before I depart: fishing on ABOT (the must anticipated results!) and my field trip to KAAOT. I hope everyone is doing well, gearing up for the holiday season and staying warm!
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