Spoke to a couple peeps online, and there is a possibility that we’re gonna be forming a band. So that’s gonna be awesome! I think you know what instrument I’ll be playing already ;)

>Wall of text incoming!<

Hah. Seriously though, a lot has changed in the past couple years since I last posted, and right now I felt like letting anyone who reads whatever I put down here to know where I am in the speed of things.

Last time I mentioned my green card being delayed for the 150th time. Well, it came through the mail shortly afterwards. So I could start online banking and transactions without relying on cash all the time (Why do credit unions in my city need my USCIS number anyway?)
After that, I got a job at Hobby Lobby up in West Dublin just north from the Bay Area in Cali. Could definitely say it was much better than my previous job at Taco Bell. More stuff for me to do, less annoying customers I had to deal with, employee discounts which I abused the hell out of on art products and paint since I started taking interest in graphic design in college, and best of all, the management team actually spoke proper English. So no more freakin’ communication errors this time between managers and me! (My old boss only spoke Spanish so she fumbled a lot with giving me instructions).

After a couple months of getting my life back on track and making some form of income again, bam. COVID hits, and I get laid off in March looking for another job right until my boss calls me back to continue working in June. By then, I was pretty much rooming with a good friend who moved from Texas down to the bay for some time. It was a big relief that someone was willing to reach out and offer me a place to stay while everyone else was forced to stay in their homes and work from there, because as someone who lost their home last year, I had some hardships trying to make it through each day juggling work and college without suffering from a mental breakdown. First semester before summer came to a close, and so I sped through all my overdue assignments, sitting up and pulling more all-nighters than a cat hooked on Adderall on a Tuesday night.

Was worth it though, as I was able to ace all my classes and get ready for the next...only I kinda didn’t want to. After weeks of drawing up ideas for what I wanted for the future, I got tired of going through the motions of spending most of my savings on school. I found it was severely interfering with my goals of raising enough money to move out of state and buy a home of my own, since it’s expensive as hell to live in Cali. But what exactly?

That’s when I decided to apply for the Navy. After a few days worth of research, I figured it would not only help because of its fixed increments and all the financial benefits it offered, but also because I felt it would be a good kickstarter for learning new skills and finding a good job as well as being in total control of my life without falling into debt and constantly having to rely on others for support, even though I’ll always cherish the times people have volunteered to help out. So I spoke to a recruiter in August, and did a bunch of tests and applications before being accepted at my local Military Entrance Processing Station.

I signed a few contracts, swore an oath that I would serve and protect the United States for as long as my years of active duty. Just before my shipping date came around, I got a call from my parents who found out about my decision to join, and for the first time in a long while, I felt grief take over that instant. Now, we were never that close as a family, and our relationship faltered even more after they got divorced ten years earlier. We had always gotten into fights, both verbal and physical, and eventually we stopped talking to each other completely after my dad told me to pack my things and leave before he threatened to get an eviction notice signed and ready. So when I answered, I expected some random voicemail from an Asian scammer or something like that. Nope. Heard my dad’s voice come up instead.

I was expecting another threat, but instead he congratulated me and said he was proud to see that I was still alive and going strong all this time. He also said he missed me and he thought about me everyday since then, and was excited to see what I would accomplish by joining the military. No less than 6 or 7 minutes later, my mother whom I haven’t seen or properly spoken to since 2015, calls me up and shares the same sentiment as dad. All that time I remembered the things I said about them and how they brought nothing but pain in my life, and hearing these words felt like a hard punch in the gut. After I hung up, I started roaming aimlessly around town feeling nothing but immense guilt and frustration. Wasn’t sure what it was that I was thinking, but I went to several bars during that week and got roaring drunk. What followed was days of nauseating pain, and since I didn’t want anyone to know about my whereabouts, I abstained myself from using all social media and anything where someone can contact me. Again, not sure what it was, but I felt like I hit major rock bottom during that time and couldn’t tell what was causing it anymore, but all I knew is that I felt like I couldn’t forgive myself or find the will to keep living.

After a long and pretty convincing talk with a bartender, I reluctantly decided to go back to my friend’s house. He seemed pretty shaken by my long absence, and things almost got heated between him and I. Eventually he calmed down and told me that we could try and sort something out, as he didn’t want to ever see me in this condition, let alone before I ship out to work in the fleet after signing a contract with the US government. I gave him all my thanks, then we hugged it out for a while, which felt pretty weird because knowing him, he gets squirmish when it comes to physical contact. Afterwards, he told me that since I would be gone for at least a couple months, he was going to get his life sorted out too and go into rehab since he had a heavy smoking addiction as well as frequent drug use he’d suffered with earlier.

We said our goodbyes to all our friends and so we parted. I took a flight along with some other recruits down to Great Lakes in Illinois where our Recruit Training Command would be, otherwise known as bootcamp. We were told to call any one of our relatives so they know of our existence in case anything bad were to happen, and so a minute later, we got our sizes checked for the military gear we would be wearing from that night onward. We had our phones, personal belongings and whatever clothes we were wearing sealed in a cardboard box that was put in a separate compartment, and so we mustered out in the cold wearing nothing but our navy PT gear and all the stuff we were provided while we waited for a bus to take us down to a different base for quarantine.

I heard that bootcamp was supposed to be 8 weeks at least, but since COVID became a thing, it extended to 10 because the first two weeks we drove off to an army base in Wisconsin where we spent those weeks locked up in barracks. Was pretty boring, as I had nothing to keep myself busy aside from a notepad, pen, and my good old paperback copy of Dune to keep me occupied. Eventually all the recruits including myself spoke frequently, talking about our lives and our plans for what we wanted to do after we finished bootcamp and moved on to A-school, and the fleet eventually. And right when we were about to head back to RTC, we had grown pretty close.

And so our first week of proper training began. Where we were introduced to our three RDCs who would train us for the time being. Yup, a chief from Texas who was a fire controlman and two first-class petty officers. Both enginemen. All of them hard as hell. And I mean it; if one of us screwed up or did something that went even remotely against their instructions, the entire division would get beat. And no, not the kind you’re probably thinking of. Since they couldn’t touch us physically, they made us go through Intensive Training, sometimes Advanced. Where they would tell us to do a certain exercise for hours straight, and if someone didn’t do it properly, we’d start again. Otherwise, it was something I got used to.

One of the best things I will admit though, is the food they serve at the galley is pretty decent. Not to mention free since the Navy has a sustenance payment system where they give you monthly funds for food, while the rest of what you don’t spend goes straight into your bank account. The same goes for housing funds they give, where they pay you roughly around $1400 a month for rent or mortgages. So just imagine how much you’d be making if you were rooming with two or more people in an apartment for $400 in total. Although, you have to reach a rank of at least E-4 to get those funds. When you first join the navy, you’re an E-1 for the time being, which is recruit pay. And luckily I was able to make it to E-2 without having to work 9 months in the fleet to get that rank just by passing my PFA and providing transcripts showing the college credit I earned over the last 3 years. All of which also resulted in me getting bonuses of $2000 and $3000, and that doesn’t even include the $4000 bonus I got for shipping out earlier than most people.

When we were classified for what our rates would be, I settled on being a Machinist’s Mate, since I found I could learn a ton of useful things in the engineering field by working with and maintaining the ship’s gears and other interiors. Also we did regular physical training in a separate building everyday which was probably the highlight of my day everyday. Also learned how to fight fires, moor a ship as well as shoot and dismantle a firearm which I had fun learning. The toughest parts for me was trying to keep everything on spot and making sure you do everything—and I mean everything—a certain way. How you walk, talk, dress, march, stow your stuff, make your racks, clean the compartment, roam or stand watch and at least a million other things.

We also got some shots and free dental work done, since I had a cavity that needed to be taken care of while a lot of the other recruits had their wisdom teeth taken out. We took some academic tests, which we all passed, went to class regularly and got our division flag painted by, of course, me :P
I don’t have a picture with me unfortunately but imagine a ripped anthro shark kneeling in an Ancient Greek hallway holding a globe of the earth with the USS Constitution sailing at the top of it Atlas-style, then you get the idea. And so whenever we marched outside, that’s what everyone would see as they walked by.

We did a ton of drill practice, as well as two more PFAs, which I passed easily. I also signed up for a new credit union account called Navy Federal, and got my military ID sorted halfway through. Things seemed to get easier as the weeks got by. Made a ton of new friends in my division so by the time Battle-stations rolled up and we were all split into teams, I had next to nothing to worry about. In fact I had fun with that too, since everything we learned in bootcamp was put to the test on a real ship, in a real-life simulation.
And so after 48 hours of strenuous tasks and no rest, my team eventually pulled through and well, we graduated.

We had a ceremony where our RDCs would take off our recruit ball caps and give us our Navy ones, signifying that we were now US sailors. Something I would’ve never expected to see myself as. But man, the emotion almost hit me completely when we came walking down in our dress-blues. We spent the next few hours just hanging around in our compartment before suddenly out of nowhere, me and three others were moved into quarantine again...because some kid who slept right next to our racks popped positive for COVID the week before.

Sooo yup. First two weeks all over again for us, while everyone else got their belongings back and their first orders. Thankfully those extra two weeks flew by faster than last time, and we started packing our stuff for A-school, which is where I am right now as I’m typing this down. And no, I still haven’t gotten my phone back, or any of the stuff I took with to bootcamp. We were told that it got moved to a warehouse off-base since we were the last few to leave RTC, so I can’t contact my friends or family just yet unfortunately :/

But on the bright side, I am doing fine, if not much better than usual. Fuckit, I’m a United States sailor, guys! I should be doing great haha. When I first arrived here, I decided to get myself an iPad so I can continue working on art as well as homework and do other stuffs while I wait for my phone to arrive. Since I’m sure there are some folks who are wondering why it still says “AFK at Navy bootcamp” as my status on Telegram lol. Either all, I might probably make a new account on discord or something later. But right now, I’m doing a tired. Current roommate is up watching anime, so Daze out :P

So I finally went for my interview down in the south bay recently for my green card approval, and for the most part it went pretty well.
Only thing I can do now is wait until later this week to see if it's confirmed that I'll be getting mine this year or not. Since there is still a chance that it may not happen.
Based on what my folks' lawyer told us, there is a possibility that it will come through in another three years if needed. So I guess here's to waiting to see what 2022 has to offer.

That’s right. Another year has passed, and things are getting a bit slow for me right now. I managed to finish a couple chapters of my story recently, however I’m still uncertain of whether it will be worth sharing yet. I feel that every time I look at what I write, there has to be something more added.
I have the overall plot and the concept and setting down, still working on things like characterization since I feel that a lot of my main characters lack depth, or at least something that sticks out from the generic cookie-cutter-cardboard-cutouts that are seen in a lot of books and movies these days.
I guess journals would be a good place to discuss these sorts of things, since I have stacks of pages full of rough story drafts and such that are continuously piling up on and around my desk (man I’m such a slob lately). At least here I won’t lose anything, aside from my sanity....hue.

Q: Hey Daze, you've been awfully silent during the past two years you've been on here! You gonna post something or what?

Ok. I'm sorta lazy when it comes to giving updates about myself online, but I figured I'm just gonna go for it. Sooo here goes...
I'm writing a storyboard based on my character since I figured that I haven't put in any effort to explain what he's about (I figure it would be better than just throwing out the formulaic "Oh, he's a representation of myself" statement, although I'm not repulsive on the idea).
So it's been a while since I've written anything productive, and I love writing. Art too, but both are something's I can do once in a while, coz I've always got work to do as well as coping with a few other things in life. But as of today, things are gonna be different.

Also, happy April Fool's y'all!