the daily grind has begun...

First of all, I want to apologize for for the lack of posts lately. I started this blog with the thought that I would have enough down time here to actually post a couple times a week. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Now that I've started my job, the only time I have to blog is time that I have to cut out of my sleep, and I need my beauty sleep. Seriously. Especially out here. I get back to the cans (what we call our rooms out here) at 2000, or 8pm. I usually go straight to sleep, but tonight I got off a little early so I thought I'd post an update.

I wish I had some pictures to post, but I lost my SD card to my camera, along with all the recent pictures I've taken. At least I didn't lose my camera. Not that there's much scenery out here anyways. I can imagine that's why the taliban is as pissed off as they are. I'd be pissed too if I had to live my whole life in this craphole. Unless your favorite hobby is building sand castles in 120 degree heat, I can promise you that nobody on this earth enjoys this place. Speaking of heat, from what I've heard, it has cooled down since June and July. I heard that in July mid to high 130s weren't uncommon. So I'm thankful I got here when I did. It's still unbearably hot, but I suppose that's better than more unbearably hot. If you want to know what it's like, take a blow dryer, put it on its hottest setting, and blow it in your face. Now imagine that feeling except all over. That's what it's like every day.

So in case you don't know, I work 12 hour days, 7 days a week. One of the hardest things about that is that there's no looking forward to the weekend. That feeling you get on Friday of almost being done with the week is replaced with the dull depressing dismay that comes with Monday morning. It feels like every day here is Monday, because on Monday, you feel like it's forever until the weekend comes. Well, my weekend doesn't come for 7 months, so you can imagine what that's like. To combat the "Monday effect", I've come up with things that come once a week that I can look forward to. On Friday nights they have steak and lobster at the chow halls. That's one thing I look forward to. The other thing is Sunday Mornings. I get to go to Church at 11, and I also take the morning off for working out. I work out Tuesday Thursday Saturday mornings and run Monday Wednesday Friday. I might have to start running a lot more though because I might be doing a marathon here in October. That'll be tough, because I'm pretty sure for a marathon you're supposed to run 35 miles a week. I don't have time for that the way my schedule is set up now.

Just so you guys have an idea of what my average day looks like here, I'll give you the rundown.

0400 - Wake up, go to the gym or run (depending on the day)

0530 - Get back to my room to shower, shave, and brush my teeth

0615 - Go to the chow hall to eat breakfast

0715 to 1945 - Work

2000 - Get back to my room and sleep

So you can see that I dont really have any free time. I hardly have time to talk with anyone back home, that's been hard too. It sucks, but that's just the way it is. Complaining isn't going to make it any better. Everything about this place has opened my eyes to tons of stuff that I had taken for granted back in the states. We're so spoiled, yet we don't realize it simply because that's the way we were raised. That's the norm. That's all we know. I've learned to be thankful for the necessities. The little things...