Cecily Smith

First Day

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 01:53:07 GMT

My misgivings about my former classmates have been proven only too true, I fear as upon returning from my classes today, I located the rather oddly, and rather familiarly shaped package sent to me, along with a small note, stating that I "deserved to wear this more" than my apparantly unfortuate replacement cadet officer.

Contained within this package was my former parade sword in all of its glory, along with a reminder that the Admiralty often granted swords for such distinguised service and leadership as mine had been in the past and it was only right in the view of my former classmates that I be given such an honor.

That this honor involved theivery on their part, that this could well lead to expulsion for Belcher should it be discovered that he is the one behind it, as he undoubtedly is, there are only so many people in that school with the gall to pull something like this off, though he assures me he has prepared a statement for the Commandant in flowery enough language to save his place. I would dearly love to slap the idiotic grin off of his face, now I need not worry about assault charges, were he here in front of me, but fortunately for him, we each are countless miles away from the other and such events cannot come to pass, so instead I sit here staring at my sword, debating what would happen should I choose to wear it into class tommorow.

I do not dare really do such a thing of course, but I wonder at the reaction to it all the same, today proved odd enough, not in the fact that I am new, a great many people are this term, it seems, but in the fact I've no idea of what is meant to be going on here in a supposedly 'normal' school. I felt rather more awkward than I must have appeared at times, particularly when I caught myself waiting for permission to leave my classes and was nearly late to Gym because of such a thing, a Gym class in which I already quite stand out, being the lone member of the female species to don sweats in the sixth block with all of the boys altogether there. I do not mind it so much, or will not when I have grown used to it, but all the same I felt the oddness for today, as I rather felt it everywhere, yet despite that oddness, the day in and of itself did not prove to be so horrible.

Classes seem most interesting, challenging yet not so much I will not sleep at night for fear of failing them, my classmates seem most interesting too from what I have learned and seen of them, and things do seem that they will be fun here, or that they already have been, its just not caught up to me yet. It does prove well enough for me to live like that.

Life so far.

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:35:54 GMT

It is funny, things here have not struck me as half so bad as I'd imagined when they said I was coming here. I do not know whether I can put this down to pirates, mysterious krakens that I have been told not to bother(though I hope I may resist it, knowing) or the general feeling I have stepped into a new and foriegn place and yet being new and foreign myself, I am still treated with respect and from those I've yet to truly know or meet.

I do suspect I have also made a friend and should the thing he indicated he would ask about come true, I think that I will find myself with others, and there's the making of them on my own besides, through classes maybe, sports or...something of the like.

Not that I stand certain on which sports I'd like to play should I choose to do so, but...it proves something to hold in consideration as things go at least, and would provide something to be of interest here, where it seems I will have actual time for it. I find that strange in and of itself, this proliferation of free time that's suddenly appeared before me even with the consideration of my classwork. I do not believe I've had so much of it since before High School certainly.

I cannot say I do not mind, but I cannot say that I loathe it either. I think it is just something new to which I must adjust, remind myself to remain dedicated to the duty I have taken up, surviving and enjoying this semester, and finding a university willing to consider late applications though I've no idea what I would study at the moment, being foremost parts of that duty I should think.

I have also had an email from an old friend, and I must say whatever Belcher has been up to, I find it a bit...worrisome that he mentions a package ought to be arriving soon from 'all of us to you'. I shudder at the possibilities of what my friends have pieced together into packageable format, because knowing them it would be something they were not supposed to send. The Officer in me wishes to ask, but another part of me enjoys the mystery for all that it is worth.

I suspect we all can see which one is the greater pressing emotion at the moment though.

Strange also in the scheme of this, is adjusting to a wardrobe that does not consist of regular school uniform. Do I own many things which are not? Something tells me I ought to take count, but another part tells me I have a few shirts and some jeans, a formal dress and that this is about it. I suspect that remedying the situation would be best, but the thought of clothing shopping fills me with an inescapable sense of dread and despair. I've no idea what I ought to be wearing after all and that is odd to me for the first time in a while, but perhaps it can be figured out in the end. Until then you may be forced to bear with clothing oddities but rest assured that they, like this entry, like all things will pass.

I think that I look forward to it.

Come Aboard? It's so ironical...

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 03:03:50 GMT

Cadet Officer Smith reporting for…

Or not. The next school transfer I made would ideally have been Annapolis, it has been the goal for quite some time now, all my life if I recall correctly, or at least since childhood when I had come to understand what it all meant, this business of the Navy and it’s history, my chance to have a part in what I’ve been watching on the History Channel from the time that’s been around.

Thus Eupheme and what has lead me to this place, strike me as more melancholy a circumstance, a necessary duty than anything else. A contribution of this feeling being the means by which such news conveyed itself to me, I would expect and am sure in time it will cease to feel so much like being ordered out for battle on some fantastic warship…

No, that does not sound entirely right, the warship would be what I wished for above all, of course, and the more old fashioned, then the greater it’s appeal. But ordered out from what I had called my home all the same, and never to return to it, and informed only upon arriving at my parents house for Christmas Leave strikes me much the same as having been given orders which I’ve no wish to fulfill.

The fact I will be packing my things up and going back to school once more, though a school I do not know has struck me as unfair, unhappy. In my mind I rail against it, but in my mind I know the Academy’s requirements and that I no longer meet them so am forced to seek my education elsewhere.

Having been invited to Eupheme somehow in the fall, those powers which be (i.e., my parents) hung on to the paperwork, made some phone calls during the course of last semester and secured me my place here without my intent or permission after the doctor had informed them of the circumstance which would prevent my returning to my old school and the ROTC program.

The circumstance is minor, I’ll not be vanishing, or disappearing to be ill, I can do entirely what I could before, a warning for the future…maybe, but nonetheless it ruins my chance of armed forces career and sets before me an entirely new path which I must face uncertainly, but I do wish I had been told some time other than Christmas Eve that my arteries are hardening and that sort of program is no longer good for me, despite the fact I have been told to exercise.

Well…Eupheme, the brochure at least was interesting when they wrote to me last fall, and were it not for disappointment, crushing in its heavy blow that will not look so bad when I am far past seventeen, and not hormonal, I think that I might quite enjoy it. Some time to settle in and I may still, pretending at it for the moment might as well become my goal.

Stiff upper lips and all of that, isn’t that what the British say?