Let mortal kombat begin!

So, MARS IV started today. Whew, what a day!

Actually it wasn't too eventful--mostly briefs about what we'll learn, how they expect us to perform, what to look for during sea phase (small ships, no cool ports, possibly nasty seas... fun!), etc.

We did have a "retention test", which is supposed to assess what we learned/remembered from MARS III. For most of the class, that should've been a piece of cake; they finished MARS III a week ago! Somehow, a lot of them had trouble, some with concepts I hadn't reviewed and just remembered from MARS III. Fortunately for me, I had reviewed most of the material, though not in great detail. There were some things I didn't remember or even know, but I managed to put something down for every question, and I felt pretty confident about most of my answers.

I need to review some things, and relearn the COLREGS as much as possible (I remember what they say, but not what they say verbatim), as well as review the flags... but this can probably wait until Xmas break. For now, I need to learn engineering, meteorology, and some other stuff.

I have a pretty good group from what I've seen, and everyone's pretty nice.

Tomorrow we start learning stuff. I can't wait.

I love my life.