DrillFest

Well hello dear readers.

I apologize for any lack of eloquence, I'm sick and exhausted, but I felt I had to give you guys something to chuckle about.

So, RMC is basically closed down for the year. All that remains, sadly, is drill, drill, some more drill, and a wee bit of paperwork. There's still a bit of random outclearance stuff to be done, mostly handing in pieces of uniforms to the tailors so they can put on new shiny badges and all that, getting our claims (that's when they give you money/plane tickets/whatever so you can get to wherever you're supposed to go for the summer), and generally making sure everything's in order. Other than that, RMC has been transformed into a gigantic parade square.

We have EPT (Elemental Physical Training) in the morning, which consists of anything from a run to playing ultimate frisbee, and then the mornings are usually reserved for whatever outclearance is necessary.. the afternoons are for parade practice for those (un)lucky enough to be on Grad parade, and general practice for those of us in the band. At night there's some practicing for the Sunset Ceremony (that happens the night before the Grad parade) and for us pipers, an extra hour of practice, usually to iron out kinks in the tunes. Add to that a few hours of personal practice spread out over the day... Yeah.

I'd like to say good things about DrillFest, but it's really a drag. It gets repetitive and boring and the schedule is such that your time off isn't really off, you just wait for whatever is next. You rush to parade in the morning, then do EPT, then rush off to shower, rush to breakfast (because they have the habit of randomly closing earlier than they're supposed to), then sit around for a few hours, go to lunch and hope it won't be too full so you can get your food quickly, rush to practice, rush to dinner, rush to the other practice, and then you just want to relax so you don't get anything accomplished. I still haven't packed, and honestly I don't know how I'll manage that. I have the kit list and all, but with no real time off, it's hard to get into it. I don't really have a choice, though, so it'll probably get done at some point.

I just wish they'd give us a day off (at least) during the weekend. As it stands, we'll have had basically three weeks with barely any break, by the time we hit Grad parade. I don't want to criticize, but they need to remember the law of diminishing returns. The more we have to over-practice, the worse we get, because we end up figuring out that whether or not we're good, we have to be practicing every day anyway, so some of us end up not bothering to put any effort. We still look good on the actual parade--we're at RMC, looking good for parades is what we do--but it's a bit hollow.

So, for now, my life is basically spread between PT and piping, with a little bit of kafkaesque bureaucracy thrown in for good measure. As much as I like all that stuff, it's starting to be a bit of a grind, and I can't wait to go on leave.

Oh well, only another week and then I can go and sleep on a real bed, eat real food, and relax... Well, at least I'll sleep on a bed where I'm less than 6 feet off the ground, eat what I want to eat, and have nothing to do for a while. I'm sure I'll find a way to get tired of that too, though.

Sorry if that's more than a little bit boring, but that's what's going on at RMC, and the whole reason I made up this blog is to tell people about RMC, so it's your own fault for reading it! HA!

Gimme a beer!