The Next Step

My girlfriend Emily after her graduation

Myself leading the band at Change of Command

This last week has been one transition. From Sunday to Saturday, this week has been filled with many new things for all of us here at MMA and outside the Academy. My week started off at Western CT State University as I watched my girlfriend Emily graduate. I got to say, I got myself a smart one, after all her hard work at school, she has graduated a year early! I find it amazing and I'm so proud of her as she takes the next step into her career. This started the chain of events for the week. Monday was like any other day, however, Tuesday was the marching competition between the companies led by the new company commanders. It is first official act done by the company commanders before they and the rest of the junior class take over. Wednesday was the official hand over of power during the change of command ceremony. During this event held on campus, the Class of 2013 handed over the reigns of the regiment to the Class of 2014. For the seniors and juniors, this was our next step. As the seniors prepare for graduation and the juniors take up the mantle of leadership, the Academy as a whole has made a transition. I was officially promoted to the 7th Company Training Retention Officer after the ceremony, and I can say I am excited for what's to come. Before I get ahead of myself though, there is one more thing this week that will bring the Class of 2014 to the next step. Tomorrow is the annual MMA Ring Dance, the night we all earn the right to wear our class rings. It is a night all cadets look forward for, and I can't wait. This was truly a week of moving forward.   

Change of Command / Maritime Day

Change of Command was yesterday on the Clean Harbors Football field. The entire regiment along with school faculty and parents observed the changing of command from the Class of 2013 to the Class of 2014. The new 7th company staff has officially taken over and I have to say that it looks like a bright future for the company. Congratulations to Mr. Brendan Heath (Company Commander) and Mr. Ian Memmi (Executive Officer) as well as their staff! I will miss being the Executive Officer of 7th Company but it is time to move on to graduation and a career. Below are some of the pictures from after the ceremony.

I stand relieved 

The new 7th Company XO, Ian Memmi

First Salute

Emery Rice Day!

Capt. Emery Rice, a graduate from MMA in 1891 commanded the Mongolia which was the first American ship to sink a German submarine during WW 1. The Emery Rice scholarship is funded by donations to MMA and students that qualify for the scholarship have their room and board as well as tuition paid for for their time at MMA.
We also have a day dedicated to Capt Rice in which the students get a relaxed day of great food and some good entertainment. Here are some of the pictures from the event!

Still waitting

So the Coast Guard MARGRAD panel met April 25th to start the process of picking out the top 9 applicants. I am anxiously waiting for the list to be published. I heard from a friend that graduated last year that it was released a few days before Memorial Day last year. If thats the case this year then we are about a week away from finding out if I have my dream job or not! Should the answer be no then I am prepared to enlist in the Coast Guard and continue on with my pursuit of being a Coast Guard officer another way. The good thing about MARGRAD is that I can reapply as many times as I want. Also I can go the Officer Candidate School route as well. TIME WILL TELL!

Spring is in bloom here in the Liaoning

Hanging out under Mao

Micki studying before the exam

Sakura Cherry Blossoms!

Cheering on the Foreign Students at the football match with
my Chinese professor. We won by the way!

Spring is in full swing here in Dalian. The trees are full of color, the city is finally starting to shed its dull drab winter coat and the summer seems to be right around the corner. We've officially reached the half way point in the program here as well! 10 weeks until I'm home! It's crazy to think that I've lived in China for almost 3 months now! Time sure does fly by especially when your having fun. But with the half way point in the semester came the fun and oh-so-enjoyable mid-term examinations or as they are called here 期中考试 (qi zhong kao shi).We had three exams in our Chinese classes, none in our major classes as there is only one final for each of our business courses. Hours of looking over Hanzi and practicing my speaking with my Chinese friends seemed to pay off as I scored a 97 overall in the exams. Not to shabby if i do say so myself!

Beyond studying and working hard in our courses I've done a lot traveling around the city. Last weekend I headed over to Sakura Garden in the southern area of Dalian call LuShun. I headed over with some of my friends from Uzbekistan and Russia to enjoy a picnic underneath the cherry blossoms. And what a sight they were! Sakura Garden was originally planted back in the 1900's by the Japanese when they controlled the Dalian area, and helped remind them of home back in Japan. Today the garden provides the residents of Dalian an area to enjoy the beauty of spring with they're friends and family. And what an amazing place! I've never felt more relaxed than I was sitting underneath those cherry blossoms!

Back at the Maritime I'm waiting to hear back on possible squad Leader positions for next Semester. Kinda crossing my fingers that i get a TRA position and maybe even an Orientation Position.

Reaching a personal goal

I few of my friends and I started using the school gym regularly our junior year. We all have goals that we a still striving for and are running out of time to achieve. Our body types are completely different from skinny to athletic to heavy. My goal is to be able to bench press 315 lbs by graduation. Currently I am at 285 lbs. My body weight is about 215 lbs. We hit the gym 4-5 times a week and leave it all at the gym.

The MMA gym consists of the usual cable machines as well as ellipticals, treadmills and stationary bikes. On the free weights side we have 7 squat racks, 5 benches as well as all the variations. Any given day after 1500 the gym is pretty packed, the pictures below are of the gym on a Friday at 1030. Perfect time.

Maritimers in Manhattan

Hey everyone! So I think I'm going to write all of my upcoming blogs on Sunday now because this is the only time of the week where I'm actually not doing anything. All of us have been so busy lately and we all sort of just been begging for a break, despite just having one. I don't what it is, maybe its the lack of sleep, the abundance of work, the alignment of the planets, or maybe it's the food we've been eating. We've all just been sort of "bleh" lately. With everyone taking finals and getting out of school, we're only halfway there, and the end doesn't seem anywhere near. 

But luckily enough, we can always break up the monotony with a little bit of adventure. Which is exactly what we did last weekend when we went to New York City for the weekend. At approximately 0500 morning on Saturday we packed onto a bus to head into Manhattan where we would be for the next 24 hours. Upon entering New York, our bus driver got us a little lost so we missed a few planned events like the Statue of Liberty cruise. Honestly, I was kind of upset because the guy didn't use a GPS or even bother to print out directions. He was kind of just like "oh, well I looked it up on Google before I came" and we're sitting here like "oh, well I wonder why we're in Queens then...?" Come on man! I thought bus drivers were supposed to be pros at this sort of thing. But whatever, we still had a good time and I'm about to tell you why. (Oh and in case you were wondering, the blog title is making fun of the AWFUL movie with Jennifer Lopez) 

My face when we got lost. C'mon man.

So after a two hour delay, we finally got to our hotel and dumped our stuff off in Ms. Medina's room because our rooms weren't ready yet. But she wanted us start exploring the city as quickly as possible so she was kind enough to let us mess up her room with all of our bags. So as soon as we left the hotel we banded together with most of the people of the exchange program and we set off. Our first destination was Madame Tussauds Wax Museum near Times Square. When we were walking to the wax museum, we were all gawking up at the huge skyscrapers surrounding us. I knew that we looked ridiculous, but I didn't care, we didn't look as bad as those guys who dress up as Spongebob and Mario in Times Square.

Elmo's a goon too.

When  we arrived at the Wax Museum, we got into for free because of the New York Passes we were provided with gave us free admission to the majority of the attractions in New York. After getting through the line that wasn't long at all, we took our pictures with King Kong and entered an elevator that took us to the top of the building where the exhibits started. We got out of the elevator and we were immediately blown away. This place was amazing and the detail on the figures was even better. We found out that each figure costs about $125,000 to create. How does it feel knowing that a fake Ozzy Osborne is still worth more than you? (I still think you're great, don't worry.) We toured the museum for a few hours looking at famous people from history, iconic scenes immortalized in wax, and even Bollywood starts. After seeing Michael Jordan, Beyonce, and Taylor Swift we were all hungry and decided to go have lunch. 

Spice up your life gentlemen.

This wasn't a regular lunch though, we were in New York, so we decided to do something big. (And sort of typical..) We went to The Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square where we had some prime American cuisine. It was pretty good.... and pretty expensive, but hey, you have to go at least once, that's what this trip was all about. So after lunch, we went back to the hotel to move our stuff from Ms. Medina's room and as soon as they had our rooms ready we left as soon as possible. We went to an... interesting museum (I'll just leave it at that) and afterwards we headed over to NBC studios where we had a reserved tour set up. The tour took us around the studio where we were able to see the sets where Dr. Oz, Jimmy Fallon, and Saturday Night Live are filmed. The tour was great and the two guides knew a wealth of information about the shows and how they were produced. Unfortunately we were not able to take any pictures inside of the studio because they were under heavy copyright laws. 

The best part of the tour though was the very end where they had us do a fake news report. I did the weather while another person was the anchor. In my opinion, the anchor had it easy, he didn't have to stare at himself on a green screen while trying to figure out where to point. Needless to say, it was hard to do my job when all of my friends are laughing at me, and it didn't make it any better when I was told that the news report was being streamed in the cafe downstairs. I still had a really good time though. I even think that I could be a meteorologist in the future, just kidding, lets be real. 

After the tour, we sort of split up to do our own thing. My group decided to go to the top of The Empire State Building which we got into for free because of our convenient New York Passes. The pass even included the SkyRide which was this virtual helicopter ride of New York City narrated by Kevin Bacon. It was not worth it and if you don't have a New York Pass don't even bother going on it because it was not a fun experience. We sat way too close to the screen and we got tossed around like rag dolls. 

Don't do it.

But after flying around New York City with Kevin Bacon we finally got to go to the top after waiting around for an hour. We made a really good choice going at night because the view was spectacular. Seeing the city at night is really something else. We had a great view, took a lot of pictures, and then we decided to go back down because we were hungry. We had a bit of a late night dinner at this small pizza place on the corner next to The Empire State building.  Afterwards, we went back to Times Square to see it at night which was astounding. You see it all the time in books and on TV but you never really feel how awesome it is until you go there. After that, we wrapped up the night and went back to the hotel at around 0100.  

The next day was short, we only had until 1200 before we left so we made a short trip to Central Park so that we could have enough time to see Ground Zero. After we went to Central Park we weren't able to enter the brand new memorial they have because you have to reserve a spot and we just didn't have enough time. Even though we didn't see the memorial, it was still a very solemn place and it's crazy to think that this is the place where The Twin Towers once stood. This was the place where thousands lost their lives and where events took place that would change our nation forever. 

Once completed, this building will stand at 1,776 feet. 'Merica

But that change would not be taken in vain but rather in triumph. Though we didn't see the memorial, we were able to see the almost complete World Trade One that is going to tower over every other building in New York and in America by the time it's completed. Along with World Trade One, there will be four more other buildings to be made in the coming years. One of our exchange students even said "You knock two down, you build five more! America!"

That's what I'm talking about. We had a great time in New York and I wish we could go back. But there are still more adventures to come, next up, Washington D.C. 

Have a good week everyone. Let's hope we survive Monday.