D-Day Plus 3

I did end up receiving a phone call from Tom on Thursday night. We were only able to talk for about 2 1/2 minutes, so I don't really have much info to share. He arrived safely in Kuwait, where he'll be for several days to acclimate. It was early morning there when we spoke, and he told me that the temperature was already in the high 80's. He told me that he was going to be attending some briefings over the next few days before hopping a flight to Baghdad.

I haven't heard anything from him since so I assume that he has not had any access to communication. Hopefully I'll hear something soon so I can update on how he's doing.

In good news: the donut has moved! We're already 2% done, which means that time is moving much faster than I had anticipated. It'll be at 50% before we know it!

D-Day Plus One

After saying goodbye yesterday, I was expecting today to be especially tough; however, it proved to be a relatively good day. It started with a 4am wake-up call from Tom, letting me know that he was at his first layover, and it was so wonderful to hear his voice. After lazing around this morning and early afternoon, I had the treat of talking to Tom online through Yahoo messenger while he was at his second layover. This layover was abroad, and we were pleased to find that the call feature worked very well- we were able to talk for about a minute before he had to turn it off due to a lack of privacy. (Literally the whole terminal could hear that we were talking, poor guy. Thanks, hun, for putting up with my silly requests!) Hopefully the Internet connection in Iraq will be able to carry the signal and we'll be able to chat often.

He's now on the final leg of today's journey, on a plane between somewhere in Europe and Kuwait. I'm expecting to hear from him again after he arrives, so hopefully I'll be able to update with that info again later.

As for me, tonight I'll be enjoying the Grey's Anatomy premiere and preparing to go back to work tomorrow. I'm almost looking forward to it, bratty kids and all. Seeing as I spent most of my day watching the computer to see if Tom would log on, I think working will be a more productive use of my day.

One last thing: military wives use something called the "Donut of Misery" or the "Deployment Donut" to keep track of homecoming in a way that doesn't violate OPSEC. Since we can't say "he's coming home in 43 days," the donut tracks the percentage of the deployment that is complete. Here's a snapshot of today's donut. Pretty depressing, huh?

And So It Begins...

I don't really have anything else that I want to add at the moment.

Last Week

So it's my last week at home with Becky (assuming no change in flights) and I'm trying to enjoy it as much as possible. We went to Wal-Mart today to stock up on toiletries and miscellaneous clothing, and then took a little drive around Fountain trying to find where are friends live. We never realized how much nice housing there is south of us, and we wish we did a little more looking before we chose--although we are extremely happy with our place.

We had a layout of our gear on Friday morning--talking 2 duffle bags, 1 rucksack, and a small backpack for personal items.--I'm pretty much ready to go, just have to pick up my ACH (Advanced Combat Helmet) cover which is getting the 4th ID patch sewn on it.

Thanks to everyone who has posted, e-mailed and kept us in their prayers--we appreciate all of it.

An Un-Uneventful Day (And Some Good News)

I found out today that John will remain a student at the high school, and that I'll be working with him for two 90-minute blocks per day. Yikes. We were finally introduced today, and it went pretty well. But tomorrow I'll be dealing with him taking a test in a new place with a new person (me), during which the first fire drill of the year will occur. (GULP!) One of my coworkers will be joining us tomorrow as we're expecting big problems; we've even talked with the resource officers about the likelihood of a major meltdown and tested the panic button in the room. I'm just hoping to make it out with all of my skin and hair and without getting hit by a thrown chair or laptop. I have to set my sights pretty low after the last two days!

Also, another one of the students with autism had a meltdown today. After yelling, hitting, and pushing her para down the stairs, she ran and hid. Four of us searched the entire school and grounds for her, and we finally determined that she had probably left and walked home. After much panic and searching the subdivisions near the school, she was located in a bathroom that had been searched multiple times by each para. She said nothing to the SPED Dean when she was brought to his office, and was ultimately sent home for the day. We still have no clue where she was hiding while we searched, and I have a feeling that we might not ever know.

And now the good news: the student who suffered the seizure was back in school today, feeling fine and with quite a goose egg from where he landed on his head. I'm so thankful that he didn't suffer a head injury, as the fall was pretty nasty.

As for the rest of the day, I gave myself the afternoon off after coming home from work. The past two days have been unimaginably stressful, and tomorrow will most likely be worse. Tom is a currently at a Meet and Greet with the commander of his unit. I am unable to attend since I have class tonight, and I'm pretty sure that I've never wanted to skip class like I do at this moment.

If you have a few moments to spare, I would appreciate a quick prayer that John has a good day tomorrow. This job is getting pretty crazy, and I definitely don't get paid enough to be dealing with a kid that could inflict severe bodily harm at any moment with little warning. I'd much rather be at home watching Project Runway re-runs. :)

A Grand Ole Day

To make the story of a really crazy day short, yesterday I was scheduled to begin working with a young man who has highly functioning autism and anger problems. When the student, we'll call him John, gets stressed (from new material, new people, tests and quizzes, etc.) he gets violent. Very, very violent. So violent, in fact, that yesterday he spent the entire school day outside with two administrators, a counselor, and a cop to prevent him from hurting anyone. Thankfully, this happened before I was scheduled to meet with him. And it now sounds like he's being moved to a special school.

I figured that would be the craziest thing that happened all day, but in the afternoon I had a student have a Grand Mal seizure in the resource room. Pretty scary stuff as he hit his head very hard and was taking a looooong time coming around. (I was told that the average time from sleep to fully awake is about 15 minutes. He hadn't come around after 30 when the paramedics took him to the hospital.) I'm hoping to get an update today as to how he's doing, poor kid. Here's hoping that today is uneventful!

Done with IRT

Well IRT is officially over, and now its time to enjoy a four day weekend with Becky and my mom who's flying in today! We've got a reservation tomorrow night at our favorite local restaurant--The Craftwood Inn (where we had our anniversary).

So training concluded yesterday with a lesson in modern CREW--Counter Radio-Controlled IED Electronic Warfare. This is the latest and greatest in current methods being used to prevent IEDs from detonating. There's dozens of different types of machines out there that the military is currently using, but we focused our efforts on the Warlock Duke (by the way this is unclassified, so don't worry). The Duke is very expensive 1 cubic foot box which can be filled with frequencies from a PDA or laptop. The idea is, you roll out the gate on a convoy or patrol and turn the box on voila...the box emits all these frequencies at a VERY high power and any receiver connected to an IED within your "bubble" that responds to one of these frequencies will be distracted by the Duke and unable to hear the transmitter---therefore unable to explode. This works great against cell phones, pagers, walkie-talkies, garage door openers and car remotes, just to name a few.

It's important to know that this only works against Radio-controlled IEDs, not other kinds, but this makes up a huge chunk of the bad stuff over there, so it's definitely a plus. Another system we learned about is Compass Call, which is a large CREW system which can go in a C-130 jet. Not only can this jam a very large area, but it can do the exact opposite....it has the option of sending out a large wave of varying frequencies all at once over a large area and actually detonate any RC IEDs that may be around. This is often used in the middle of the night, when people aren't wondering the streets, thus helping to clear the route before any convoys or patrols head out. Neat eh?

Busy, Busy, Busy

For those of you who don't know, I've started graduate school pursuing a MA in Special Education. I've only had two classes so far, but I can already tell that the courses will be challenging, but fun. I'm currently enrolled in Into to Special Education and a seminar course in Multicultural Education. So far most of the readings have related to sociology (my undergraduate degree). However, with these courses we'll actually be applying our acquired knowledge. That will be a nice change of pace from sociology, where you just study and memorize theories.

Also, I've accepted a full time job working as a Special Education Paraeducator at Fountain-Fort Carson High School. I'm spending my days collaborating with teachers in their classrooms and working in the Resource Room. So far, I've just been "baby-sitting" some students who have behavior issues, but soon I'll be working alongside those students who have been identified as needing a little extra help. My coworkers have all been great in showing me the ropes but are always quick to point out that I look like I should be attending high school, not working in a high school. :)

Other than that, we've just been enjoying our last couple weeks before the big D. It's finally hit me that it's real and that it's SOON. I wish that the denial stage could have lasted a just a little bit longer...

Main Entrance of the HS- Home of the Trojans