Sixth Week!!! and counting

The sixth week was National Police Memorial Week and was a blur!  I met my family in Roanoke VA which is half way on Sunday, Mother's Day!! I did not make it home that week end because of the DC 5K!  It was nice to spend time with my children and I am lucky that they wanted to meet me half way! They took me to the Olive Garden for lunch!  Courtney brought me some beautiful tulips which she knows is my favorite flowers!!!!

Whitney made me a cake and I took it back with me.  Britney and Ken were happy to see me and they all took me shopping!  It was hard to leave them but I was happy that they drove to meet me! 

Monday night, the entire NA class, (253) was put on a bus and driven to Washington DC for the National Police Memorial Candle Light Vigil. It was awesome and an experience that I will never forget! 

Notice the "Thin Blue Line" in the sky in the above photo!!!

I got cold and woke up the next morning with a head cold that kicked my rear end for about three days.  I wanted to nap all the time, during lunch, on class breaks, and any free time!  It made the week's PT challenge that much more difficult.  It was a cardio mixer. There was about two miles of running with different exercise stations mixed in (lunges, push-ups, etc). I found the down hill bear crawl the most challenging and lost most of my time on that event because my nose continually ran. I'm feeling much better now and my cold was no big deal compared to some others. Several people have been sick.  One classmate, Tony (from Knoxville, who is a friend) got pneumonia during week six and was in the hospital for a few days.  He has returned to class now.

The silent auction was Wednesday night! It was a lot of fun! The group raised over $11,000 for charity. Thursday was "Cop's Kids" Day! This is a great organization that offers support to children of fallen officers across the country.  A group of kids who had a law enforcement parent killed in the line of duty came to the FBI Academy for a day of fun!!! There were several activities for them and we spent the entire day spending time with them.  

Class has been going well. I have learned a lot.  I still have a few papers and projects to finish up but hope to stay on track with that.  I was given permission to miss class on Friday! My middle daughter, Whitney graduated from High School on Friday afternoon, so I drove home after the Cop's Kids event on Thursday.  I am at home now and enjoying a long weekend with my family.  It's hard to believe that Monday is the beginning of week seven.  There are only four weeks left to go and really only three weeks left of classes and PT.  We will wrap up the "Yellow Brick Road" challenge during week nine!

The Graduate: Whitney 

All three of my girls, Courtney, Whitney, and Britney!!!

Courtney the oldest, and Whitney!

Britney!

Fifth week

Everyone says that around the fifth week things start moving fast. As slow as things went the first two weeks, I really found that hard to believe. The fact is that it is now the beginning of the seventh week and I have been so busy that I am way behind with my updates.  During the fifth week we had a very interesting speaker, General Henry Hugh Shelton. He was one of the best so far.  

Our PT challenge during week five was a 5k run around the FBI Academy campus.  I was happy with my time, 35:27.  I know that is a little slow but it was my best time so far.  I did beat that time, however on that following Saturday when a group of us signed up and ran the National Police Week 5K in Washington DC. My time in that run was 34:07. It was awesome. We started at the Police Officer's Memorial and ran through the streets of DC. We ran in front of the Capital Building and it was a very fun event. 

This is a photo of the NA team:

This is a photo of me and my room mate prior to the run, she ran off and left me during the race by the way!  She is very fast.

This me right after the race. I had a lot of fun and would love to take my daughter, Whitney up there next year to run it again! She wanted to be there so bad! She is my running buddy and I missed her!

Fourth Week!!!

The fourth week is well on its way to being over! Yesterday was challenge day. The fourth week physical challenge was called "The Cyclone". It was a circuit challenge where all 218 people moved from station to station as the bell sounded. There were five stations in total. For example there was a push-up with knee touches station then a lunge station etc. We had to do each exercise for 45 sec and move to the next station. The challenge only lasted for 20 minutes but I was sweat soaked by the end of it. I would rather run!!!!

We had another enrichment speaker yesterday afternoon. The day flew by. Some of the other girls and I escaped for a couple of hours during our free time yesterday. We did some shopping and had some Chick Fil a!! It was a nice change of pace.

I am still working on a couple of major projects. Hope to have all of that finished soon. About 115 people are taking the New York City trip this week end. I did not sign up for it mostly because I have been to the city before and the trip was $600. I could not bring myself to spend that kind of money. I know that it will be a wonderful opportunity for those that are going.

Third Week

I am almost through the third week of training and things are starting to move smoothly. I am getting used to my class schedule and have gotten a lot of my papers turned in. I still have a couple of projects and a paper or two to finish. This week we saw the movie Black Hawk Down. It was the first time that I had watched it. It is based on a true story and we had a guest speaker, Mike Durant, on Wednesday. Mike was the real pilot who was captured. He gave a very good speech and told about his experiences.

Fitness is going well. I really like my Fitness teacher, he has really taken the time to teach each of us the right way to do things and you can tell he really cares. He still kicks our rear ends every class but he does it with a smile on his face.

I will be traveling home this week end and can't wait to see my girls. Whitney will be graduating high school soon and Courtney will have a birthday in May. It is difficult to believe she will be 20. Britney is enjoying soccer. She had TCAP tests this week and Ken made her bacon and eggs every morning. She is convinced that is the only way she can do good on the tests. I miss them all.

Tonight will be another girls night out here at the NA. Since there are so few of us, we try to get together and go to dinner about once a week. Last week we went to a nice pizza place.

End of second week

Most people say that the second week is better than the first. I have found that to be true. I am way less stressed now than before. There was a lot of activity the second week. We are all getting settled down into our class routine and most people are working very hard at completing the writing assignments. Myself included. One of the most difficult things was trying to organize what work was due when. I had a friend recommend an "app for that". I got the app on my phone and input all of my class information and it really helped me feel like I was more in control.

We had Flag Night last week (during week two). There were patches and pins being exchanged like crazy. I took advantage of having my photo taken with the of a UK International student. Thanks Gary from West Yorkshire.

I didn't make it all the way home this past weekend but my husband brought my girls to meet me half way. I really miss them all. We text a lot and do a lot of face time but it is still not as good as seeing them everyday.

We had our first fitness challenge last week, a 1.8 mile road run. I ran mine in18 min and I was very happy with that time. The second challenge is today. Some sort of station challenge. More about that later.

Second week

Well I made it through the first week and a weekend trip home. The first week was some what stressful. I think the main reason was I felt like I was not in control. It took a while to figure out where I needed to be. I am more settled now and starting to enjoy my classes.  I have several good classes and I like all of my instructors.  I am learning and will learn a lot of good information that will be useful to me when I return home and back to work.  So far I have enjoyed my fitness class. It is one of those things that your not sure of in the beginning. Fitness is comprised of both a classroom portion and gym workouts.  There is a lot of good information about nutrition that I am learning in the classroom and I'm getting my rear end kicked in gym.  I am so happy that I started running a year ago.  My fitness instructor made it clear that we have to focus on running outside of class to be successful.

My roommate is great. We get a lone well. She is a great runner and I have been taking advantage of running with her when I can.  It is difficult to keep up but I am working on it.  I loved getting to see my girls this past weekend.  I think that helped release my stress.  They keep in touch with me which helps as well.

Check-in Day!!!

Today has been a very long day.  I left home early and drove over 7 hours to the NA.  The check in was great.  There were plenty of FBI Agents in training to assist with getting our stuff from our vehicles to our rooms.  My room is small but nice.  I believe that it must have been updated in the last few years because it is much better than what I expected from what others have told me.  I have unpacked and bought my uniforms that will be required for the next 10 weeks.  I participated in a tour of the campus which is very large.  My room mate has not yet arrived so I am still wondering about that one.  The FBI National Academy (Law Enforcement) has four classes a year.  Most classes have approximately 250 students and averages about 30 to 50 females.  Class 253 has been cut back to about 210 or so not sure yet.  They are doing construction on one of the dorms and cut back the number as a result.  I also heard that there are less than 20 females.  I have met about 6 so far.  All are very nice and ready to talk.  There is one other lady from Tennessee.  Her name is Gracie and she is from Memphis.