Moving Day

September 6, 2010

I know what you are all thinking, “why hasn’t Allison blogged in a few days?” I apologize for keeping you all in suspense but I have a very good reason for my tardiness. I have finally moved!! After having lived in Army hotels/barracks for the last 8 months of my life, I finally have a place to call my own, that is for the next 11 months at least.

Friday morning I had an appointment with the housing office here at Camp Carroll to sign all the paperwork and get the key to my new living quarters. I had no idea when I was going to be able to fit in this important event into my schedule that day. After arriving at work early to prepare for the weekly training and staff meeting, I was soon bombarded by my boss with at least three projects for the day besides for my normal craziness. That night we were having our monthly Hail and Farewell party to welcome the new people and say goodbye to those leaving in the next month. Apparently it was my job to send out and collect information sheets to all the companies so they could have their people fill them out for short ceremonial aspect of the evening as well as go order plaques for those leaving who had donated money into a special fund that pays for those type of mementos. Not only was I not aware of my tasks beforehand but on the day of is surely not the time to do it all. First I had to pull up rosters of all those who were leaving and had come so I could make a list to send to the commander, then I sent out the email to the company commanders requesting their participation in having their people fill out the information cards only to immediately receive at least two responses saying “we don’t do this anymore.” However the genius that I am I CC’ed my boss on this email so at least she knew I was doing my part whether or not they complied was now on them. All in all I received two cards and one was my own. Later I went to plaque shop on post to order two plaques, luckily they were same day pick-up, unluckily when we took them out of the boxes that evening one of them fell apart because the glue had not dried full yet. Also ironically the “fund” used to purchase these items was recently revoked and declared illegal by the lawyer at brigade, however my boss said go get them anyway and we’ll figure out something different for next month. So unfortunately it was a tad illegal but life goes on.

While rushing to finish these projects that morning I also had to get up to our tactical center by 1030 to input numbers and names for a monthly report that goes up to the Department of the Army. Not only had I never used the system to input all the information it needed, but I had to trust that the junior enlisted soldier who pulled the data together and checked by my predecessor was accurate. If it wasn’t right it will fall back on me, but I guess its just another learning experience for this first month. At least for next time I know what to look for and what documents I need.

By the end of that report, I was already 3 hours late for my appointment at housing. I left the tactical center and headed to housing hoping they didn’t give away my place because I hadn’t shown up. I was in luck it was still there however it took almost on hour to get my key and sign the papers. The customer service there was less then to be desired.

I headed back to work to finish up other work, the went to pick up the plaques. I was happy to be leaving work at a decent hour so I could go home and perhaps shower before the evening festivities. Halfway home I got a call saying I had to return to the tactical center because something was wrong with the information I reported earlier. I finally got back there only to find out that the error was not my own but the captain was reading it wrong. As I left it was five minutes to 6pm, did I mention the event started at 6? So I rushed back to the hotel to change and get over there, I ended up only being 10 minutes late so not too bad considering.

The Hail and Farewell was alright, we had great food and the company was great but then the ceremony part started. I was the first one up to be hailed to the unit. My boss introduced me and after saying my name the first thing that she chose to announce was that I was single, to which immediately a smart ass sitting in the front row shouted “me too” and I then turned bright red. However I was asked to explain how I have the last name Chan, to which I gave my classic response, “I was adopted by an Asian couple.” At this point everyone started at me in an ironical way, and I got “oh really, interesting,” as a comment. I then said I was kidding and everyone burst into laughter and I think I made a good first impression to all those who had yet to meet me. Everyone loves jokes! There ceremony part continued for another 2 hours. Can I just wow some people are talkers? It probably would have been more fun if I knew people better to understand what they were talking about in their farewell speeches, or if I understood any of the unit’s inside jokes that were told but I did not. I did have a couple of guys new to the unit as well standing by me all wishing it would end so at least misery had company, just kidding.

After finally arriving back the hotel at 10pm, I packed up and called a cab to move me to my new place. I threw everything in and headed back to the hotel so I could go to bed because the next morning I had to wake up early to drive up to Osan for another work project. Finally that next day after getting home around 4pm I was able to unpack and slightly settle in. The rest of my stuff will get here in about a week so it is still quite bare. All in all it’s decent for military living. I have a living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. I also lucked out that the laundry room is my neighbor so not too far to go for that. My only complaint is the walls. Why must I live in a place with concrete walls? And who would choose to paint them yellow with brown doors and trim on the windows? Hopefully once I get a few rugs and put some posters on the walls it will look more homey! Maybe once I get out of the Army I will try and get a contracting job to be the interior designer to Army housing.