DOLC and Week 4!

We made it to week 4! Wahoo!!! This week has been very different from previous weeks. Since we have taken our exams, we have moved out of BOC (Basic Officer Course) and FOC (Fleet Officer Course) training and have moved to DOLC (Division Officer Leadership Course). Very different atmosphere. First, we are allowed to have coffee and snacks. I don't drink coffee, but the rest of the class sure does. For 63 of us, I think they went through 2 boxes from Dunkin' Doughnuts and about 20 pots of coffee yesterday. We also were allowed to eat the cookies that someone's aunt sent last week. 10-1 gallon bags of cookies made it just past lunch... The training itself is also very different. We are in table groups and the training is interactive and setup to stimiulate conversation. For example, one of the senarios that one group had to deal with yesterday as we discussed mid-year and annual counseling sessions (reviews) was the character being reviewed was having inappropriate relations with an officer (the character was enlisted). The person in the role of the DIVO (Division Officer) had to deal with this, then as a class, we discussed it. Very interesting. Other groups dealt with suicide, co-worker inappropriate relations, etc. Great conversations.

Ok, I've got to jump back a couple of days. Monday was very cold and wet here. We were in the 30's with a nasty wind (approx. 30-40 knot winds - 35-45 mph winds). So, as we marched everywhere, we spend most of the day in very wet pants. Just about the time they dried out, we were on the move again. No worries though. :) We also learned that we were going to be given evening liberty from the end of business to 2000. That means no galley food...unless you really wanted it! The galley food has made everyone very gassy...future ODSers, bring some gasx - your shipmates will appreciate it!

We have to muster in a few minutes to get today rolling for DOLC, but just to give an idea of what today entails as a week 4 day:

0345 - wake-up
0445 - march to gym 302
0500 - PT (and it wasn't all that bad)
0615 - chow
0800 - DOLC (leadership course)
1015 - tour the Arleigh Burke destroyer
1130 - chow
1300 - DOLC
1600 - liberty
2000 - evening muster

Fun day today. :) PT wasn't too bad either. PT this morning was the draw the card and do the 4-count exercise (a heart card had us doing the number on the card of 4-count push-ups...so 6 of hearts is 6 push-ups going down-up-down-up=1) Not too bad. :) Either we're getting stronger or we just make it fun enough that we don't care.

Real quickly, please be in prayer for one of our shipmates here. He found out that his wife is pregnant the first week he was here and this will be their first child. She had previously had a miscarriage, so please be in prayer for them.

Ok, gotta run. God bless everyone and have a wonderful day!