Two weeks from yesterday, I will get on a plane and head out west to the town of Roswell in New Mexico. The following Wednesday is Matriculation Day at the New Mexico Military Institutes for Junior College cadets (half of NMMI cadets are High School cadets, half are Junior College cadets either studying for an AA in liberal arts or social sciences or in a prep program for one of the Federal Service Academies, which is what I will be doing). For the following couple of weeks, I will be in the initial cadet training, which is mostly PT and close-order drill.
I already know close-order drill pretty well because I have two years' worth of Junior ROTC under my belt and attended a military boarding school (Massanutten Military Academy in Woodstock, Virginia) for a while, so the only movement that I have to learn is Inspection Arms (with the M1903 Springfield rifle that is NMMI's drill rifle). For this reason, I need to focus more on the PT aspect, as I have never been much of an athlete. I have participated in one season of high school track and field (mainly shot put with some discus) and half of a season of football (defensive line, had to quit because of grades, so the JROTC saber guard at homecoming game was the first time I set foot on the field during a game) as well as a few weeks and one competition in the JROTC raider team (competition is a few hours of physically demanding tasks: pushups, situps, and mile while wearing ACU pants, competition-specific tasks such as rope bridge, obstacle course, and vehicle pull, and finally a 5k in formation as a squad while wearing ACU's and canteens full of water). However, I have never been very good at any sport other than golf and rifle, so I never had much interest in any of those sports other than track (although one of the many reasons for that happens to be female), which I wish my parents would have allowed me to do for more than one season. For this reason, I will probably be in much worse shape than the other new cadets at NMMI unless I spend much of my summer getting in shape (I've been going to the gym twice weekly on average, and the lack of daily access to Coca-Cola products is also certainly helpful).
What do I hope to accomplish and plan on accomplishing at NMMI? For one thing, I hope to earn an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, or Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York. I think that at least beginning my career in the military will be very helpful due to what my skills and interests are (cryptology, for example). I also plan on learning time management skills. Through four years at a public high school and a summer at Massanutten Military Academy, I learned that I am not the kind of person who benefits from a civilian environment; the structured military environment is a much better educational environment for me.
What will I be doing that differentiates me from other NMMI cadets? I will not have much choice in what courses I will take. However, I will be taking calculus and one or two languages (Arabic and/or Russian, already taken French past what NMMI offers).
This isn't a very good diary, but it's an update on my life, for those who care enough about my life.