The Daily Grind

March 30th, 2007
Over the last week, while Zack was away, I found myself a routine to follow. I spent Monday doing the kind of normal stuff that would bore you all to tears. Tuesday, everything happened at once. Ombudsman training started, and I started working on a Master's Degree online. The Master's Degree is through the University of Phoenix. They have an office over here in the education center and apparently classes start every Tuesday (it's Monday in Phoenix). My degree will be a MA of Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in English as a Second Language. Everytime one of my classes ends, I'm automatically enrolled in the next one.
Other than being online, it's a lot like any other program. There's an online classroom, and an attendance and participation policy that require me to log on at least a certain number of times per week and to comment on what's being said in a productive way. This class is the "Introduction to Grad School" class, though that's not what it's called. Most of the students are also going for some kind of Curriculum and Instruction degree, so that's nice. Most are in the states, but we've got one student in South Korea, and one in the UK. I like it so far because I can get on whenever I have time. It's not something that requires me to be somewhere at a specific time. The downside so far is that I have to learn APA format, and I've taught MLA for three years now. :::sigh::: I guess I deserve it. And it certainly could be worse.
Ombudsman training has been very interesting. The best summary I can give you is that being an ombudsman is like being an information booth for the families from your ship. If they have a question, it's your job to either have an answer, or know where to find one. The average family, as it turns out, thinks the ombudsman is a babysitter, taxi driver, and automatic best friend, so most of the problems they face involve convincing people that this is just not so. They're not even required to manage the social stuff. That's the responsibility of the Family Readiness Group. Mostly, they keep up communication between the ship and the families, so everyone knows more or less what's going on and how everyone is doing.
The other important thing I learned is that the CO's wife and XO's wife can't be ombudsman. They have their own special title. So the only person who is currently trained to be an ombudsman on Zack's ship other than the current one is me! The leader of the class suggested that if I was concerned, I could probably work with Carmen (the current ombudsman) until she leaves and then take over. I'm thinking I'll do just that. The job actually requires a lot of the same skills as teaching, actually. I found myself constantly comparing it to dealing with parents at school. So I think I'll be okay. I've talked it over with Carmen, and I will be putting in my application soon. So that's it. No more commitments for me. I am not sticking my nose in anywhere else... for now....
Tuesday night was also Japanese class, which was reading focused. For those of you who may not know, Japanese has at least three alphabets (I've heard up to five depending on how you count them). Hiragana is a set of letters that represent the basic sylables of Japanese (there's 40-some). Katagana does the same thing, but is used for foreign words and sometimes italics. Kanjii is a modified version of Chinese characters where each symbol represents a word. There are 2000 some of those. To read a Japanese newspaper, for example, you have to be able to read all three alphabets. I am getting decent at the hiragana alphabet, but katakana is still really hard for me, and they're not even trying the kanji with me. It was exhausting.
Wednesday after ombudsman class all day, there was yoga and then University of Phoenix. Thursday I finally didn't have much to do when I got home and allowed myself to go to bed a little early. Friday evening I hung out with Mel again. Then Zack arrived back!
The trip was a little rough on him because the weather has not been very nice lately. I guess the waves got pretty bad at times, but he didn't get seasick, so that's good. I think most of his trip was devoted to working on turnover, since Tim leaves tomorrow. Turnover for the Suppo involves a lot of counting because he'll be responsible for everything that is (and isn't) on the ship once it's done. So you have to make sure you have what the inventory says you have. He also spent a lot of time reviewing training. He says it makes a lot more sense now that he's seeing the practical side of it. If you ask him flat out, he says he likes his job, and I think he's excited. It's just a lot of responsibility, so I'm sure he's a little nervous, too. It's Saturday, but he's back at work again for a meeting or something... He laughed when I suggested he'd have some time off this weekend. So what the other wives say is true: even when they're here, they're not here.
So we're both plugging away and keeping busy. The weather is clearly changing. When we first arrived, we couldn't stay in any room for long without heat and slippers. I haven't turned a heater on in about four or five days now. It's been alternating between beautiful sunny days and rainy or cloudy and humid days. Today, it's warmer outside than in, and it's very cloudy, humid and windy. I think it may have rained in the night. If what the rest of the Americans say is true, summer is going to hit us any second now. In the mean time, all the trees are blooming, and it's really lovely.