Then Friday is graduation! You will march in and the graduation ceremony is about 45 minutes. After that you are free to go! Most people have to go to the airport to leave for their duty stations or to go back to school but I was lucky to have a few days of leave and I explored Newport with my family. We spent until Monday in Rhode Island and I'm glad we did because my family had a great time. Can't believe ODS flew by that fast!
The last week! I actually couldn't believe how quickly it came! Before I knew it ODS was over and I was actually sad! The beginning of this week, Monday, Tuesday, and half of Wednesday are spent finishing up DIVOLC. You will also spend a good chunk of time practicing for graduation that week and you will also have your out PRT (or at least we did) on Monday of this week. Thursday you will have your reception at the Officer Club and you will be given overnight liberty but you have to be back at 0430 on Friday morning so I went out will my family and went back to base to sleep so I wouldn't be late in the morning. Friday morning there were people missing so the chiefs RPTed us (remedial physical training, AKA punishment) but I think that was planned anyways. I had heard that the last day they take you to the sand pit but they never took us, that disappointed me. Then Friday is graduation! You will march in and the graduation ceremony is about 45 minutes. After that you are free to go! Most people have to go to the airport to leave for their duty stations or to go back to school but I was lucky to have a few days of leave and I explored Newport with my family. We spent until Monday in Rhode Island and I'm glad we did because my family had a great time. Can't believe ODS flew by that fast!
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This was another busy week that flew by! There really wasn't any huge events this week. We were expected to PT on our own every morning at 0500 and we were in classes all week long. It was pretty much death by power point this entire week. Oh and we did get our vaccinations I think. I missed a lot of the classes this week because I was running around trying to get my overseas screening paperwork taken care of. One word of advice for anyone going overseas, make sure you start your overseas screening before ODS and if at all possible have it pretty much done before you get there. I literally didn't finish mine until the last week of ODS which put a hold on receiving my plane ticket to Japan, making me more stressed than need be. So just try to at least start it if you can. At the end of this week on Thursday and Friday we started what is called DIVOLC which stands for division officer leadership course. This whole class you will spend in the same class room, with the same officers, and in the same groups. I missed a good chunk of this too because of overseas screening stuff but mostly it is lectures, team building exercises, role playing, and discussion groups about a lot of leadership techniques and situations you may encounter as a DIVO (division officer). This class is useful so as hard as it is to stay awake please try! And try not to miss it because I was actually upset that I missed the majority of the course due overseas screening. This course is one of the most applicable things you will learn during ODS because you will be a DIVO one day. I also took my pictures this week, on Friday. Most people took them much earlier than that but I had special ordered my dress white jacket and it took forever to come in so I had to wait to take mine. Its really funny when you go down there to take them because you only get dressed from the waist up. So you are walking around with PT shorts on and then your dress white getup on top, it looks quite silly. Pictures are pretty expensive so keep in mind if you want them they will run anywhere from $100-$300 depending on what you get. The most exciting part of this week was that we were able to go to Boston on liberty and we were given alcohol privileges back! We were supposed to spend both Saturday and Sunday there but we weren't granted overnight liberty that weekend so we decided not to drive up both days. We spent Friday night and Saturday all day in Newport. We went out in Newport Friday night and had a blast! Be VERY careful this weekend because you are given alcohol privileges back and some people went a little too crazy and could have gotten themselves in a lot of trouble. There is a limit on the amount of alcohol you are allowed to drink, a limit of 3 drinks per day. I suggest you follow it if you can't control yourself because if you get in trouble you will ruin it for everyone so be careful! On Saturday we went to breakfast, relaxed on the beach, went to yoga, and then went out again in Newport. We actually met some international students this weekend and spent some time with them. It was awesome to talk with them and hear about their countries! Then on Sunday we drove to Boston and saw the USS Constitution and went to the Red Sox game. It was a blast! I have a friend stationed on the Constitution so he gave us a super in depth tour and took us places that you don't normally get to see. So fun! Then at the Red Sox game they let us all go on the field and take a picture and the stadium gave us a standing ovation which was so cool but also very weird. Chief always talked about having a moment, like a moment where it hits you that you're an officer in the United States Navy, and that was one of those moments. Made me extremely proud! The game was a lot of fun but somewhat overwhelming because we had to wear our whites so people do not leave you alone. Everyone wanted to talk to us, take pictures, buy us drinks, and even sneak pictures of us too. Again, weird, but very humbling and amazing to see all the support. Boston is very patriotic city! Wow time has flown! Sorry these posts are so late but I am going to try my best to review what happened each week. Week 3 was another busy week at ODS. We had a lot going on that week; formal room inspections, dress white inspection, and our multiple choice exam. All went well although I was nervous for every event again. Basically with formal room inspections our chief told us it would be that week but he didn't tell us what day. So you have to make sure your room is on point pretty much all week and even after the inspection because they will still get you for things after the formal inspection. My roommate and I did really well, I think I had one hit and she had two but you need more than six to fail or one of the automatic failure items which are listed on your room inspection sheet. Things like locker unlocked or lock not set to zero, windows open or unlocked, or gear drift (things out that shouldn't be) are all automatic failures. Dress white inspections are exactly like the khaki inspection. Make sure you still know your gouge because they will ask you questions just like the khaki inspection. Lastly was the comprehensive multiple choice exam, which was 50 questions on all the information we had learned up until that point. There was study guide on the student drive which helped but just review the material from lectures and you should be fine. No one failed this exam in our class which was really good I guess, usually they have a few failures but not our class! :) There was a lot of other lectures and topics sprinkled in there throughout the week but I can't remember all the specifics. These were the big things that week and I remember we PTed as a class every morning at 0500 so be prepared for that, although all classes are different. Our class was also given off base liberty in Newport, which was awesome! I had some really gnarly blisters on my feet from our dress shoes so I actually spent most of the weekend just relaxing but I did explore Newport Friday night of this week. Make sure to bring lots of blister band-aids and keep an eye on your feet because your blisters can really get out of hand. I actually had to go to medical to get a chit that allowed me to wear flip flops "in the house", after our day had ended so I could get my blisters to heal. It was terrible! Whew! Done with week 2! This week flew by because we were so busy and had a lot of fun! The highlights of this week were firefighting, damage control, inspection, and weekend liberty of course. So Tuesday we had a very long lecture on firefighting and damage control on the ship. Then Wednesday we went to the firefighting school where we got all dressed up in full gear and these devices called SCBA's which just stands for self-contained breathing apparatus. They are what the sailors use when fighting fires on ships so its basically just air in can. Once we got all geared up we fought some fires! Not real fires but it was still cool to see how hard damage controlmen and the sailors that are on the fire squad work. It was so hot! A lot of people didn't like the firefighting but I thought it was so much fun!
The next day was damage control on ships which was also so much fun. We were taken to the USS Buttercup, a model of a ship hull that takes on water and works as a training device for basic damage control on naval ships. They went over all the different types of damage control methods for sealing leaks and holes and how to basically help if the ship is sinking. We tried to beat the OCS class that had a time of 13 minutes but we weren't even close. It took us 19, almost 20 minutes but we had so much fun while we were doing it. Damage control is a really cool job on the ship! Then Friday morning we had inspection at 0500 which I was really, really nervous for but it turned out okay. I was lucky because I had our lieutenant as my inspector and he was pretty nice to me. The questions I was asked weren't too bad and I think I only got one hit on my inspection for a string but the most you could get was six so I did great! Yesterday we were fitted for our NWU's which is the Navy Working Uniform, the blue camo, can't wait to get those! Although they are a lot thicker and hotter than I thought, supposedly the Navy is coming out with a new design soon though and they are supposed to be more lightweight. We were also given liberty of the entire base so we could go to the O-club or the Officers Club on base. It was really nice! Plus the food was so good! The galley foot here isn't that bad but it just gets old eating at the same place and eating the same thing after awhile so we can't wait to get out next weekend and explore Newport! Next week is jam packed again, we have pictures, dress whites inspection, our big exam, and formal room inspections and we are in class pretty much all week so it will be extremely busy. We are also PTing at 0500 every morning so that should be fun! |
Amanda BrockI am a new graduate nurse stationed in Japan serving in the US Navy. Archives
August 2017
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