Biting the Bullet!

Joe stepped up in his small group and briefed his Op order first on Wednesday. After several days of working on it, he felt the need to get it over with and offered to present first to his group of 13 guys. Although there are approximately 40-50 guys in his class, they are divided into 4 small groups of 13-15 guys. So thankfully Joe and his small group only have to present to each other, otherwise it might take several days to get through all of them. In the long run, Joe felt that his presentation went well and got good feedback from his instructor and small group classmates. Over the next couple of months, he'll have more Op orders to produce and present, but the first is over with and that's always a relief.

I'm starting to get a little stir-crazy with the repetitive nature of being unemployed. Clean the house, do the grocery shopping, run the daily errands, and then start it all again. I'm starting to look for options outside of my normal schedule and have begun meeting new people in and around Ft. Knox. I've done some shopping with Nicole Madsen (her husband is in Joe's large class), Julie Gambacorta (a familiar face to most), and Adrienne Biel (her husband is in Brett Gambacorta's large class; they started the Career Course in September). On Tuesday night, I attended the coffee group for Joe's class; I met several ladies from other units at Ft. Lewis and other bases. I was pretty surprised that half of the women in our coffee group were last stationed at Ft. Lewis, but wasn't too surprised that I didn't know many of them since the base is so large.
On Thursday, I went to watch Joe's class play Brett's class in Gator Ball which is a cross between soccer and rugby/football. Afterwards, we went to dinner with Stoney and Alison Portis. Stoney is in Joe's small group and they came to Knox from Ft. Hood in Texas.

As Joe is putting himself out there in his class, I'm starting to put myself out there to experiencing new things and meeting new people. I couldn't imagine 6 months of sitting in the house reminscing on the past, so watch out Ft. Knox, Amanda Byerly is ready to socialize.