Retiring to the Nerdery with my calculator...

It’s been insane around here lately. We’ve got an Afloat Training Team onboard and they’re running us ragged with drills and training. They’re nice guys but we’ve had at least four drills a day since leaving San Diego. It’s getting annoying. Other than that though, things are still going really well. The mate I’m on watch with is truly a great guy. (I might have already said that in a previous post, but it bears repeating.) He’s taught me so much. Yesterday he gave me the conn and then randomly comes in from the bridge wing and goes, “Man overboard starboard side, what do you do?” I was so flustered it took it a second to register that he was serious. So I went over what I knew, and then he talked me through it step-by-step. Awesome! I’ve already learned ten times more in the past two weeks than I did the whole four months I was out last year. Like I said… Awesome! Mom and Dad are planning on coming out to Hawaii on the 29th. Yay! I'm hoping they'll come visit the ship. The 2nd mate especially wants to meet Dad and take him to task for not teaching me anything and everything about how the Navy drives carriers. I can’t find it in my heart to tell him that in my family we spend a great deal of time making fun of SWO-tivators. He’s a goober, but that would probably crush him, or possibly cause him to give me more arbitrary “homework.” Sara and I are currently stuck trying to figure out how to plot a Great Circle route to Hawaii from San Diego. Luckily it’s not the one we’re supposed to be using, because we’re completely stumped. We’ve spent hours poring over Bowditch and plugging numbers. The stupid boys got the easy route and they haven’t even started. It’s gonna take them about ten minutes. We are not amused. On the upside, we got TV back today, so we watched the “Crocodile Hunter” at lunch. I forgot how much I love that guy. He truly amuses me. He found a diamondback rattler and decided that was the “pinnacle” of his career. If the pinnacle of my career includes any sort of reptile, I’m throwing myself out a window, I swear. Different topic, we had a cookout tonight on the flight-deck. That was highly enjoyable and ten times better than your average KP Waterfront cookout. (Maybe because we had serving utensils...) I absolutely can’t wait to get to Hawaii, which is supposed to happen Friday. We’ve already got a ton of stuff planned. I hope we get to half of it. And now, it is time for me to go to bed and get my extra hour of sleep. Let's all give a cheer for turning the clocks back! Yay time changes! Hip hip HOORAY!!! No? Just me? Aww...

Goodnight!
Alyssa