One down and eleven to go. Weeks, that is. Of the Academy, that is.

It's actually pretty fun, so far. Very interesting and challenging, though the amount of sheer information we have to stuff into our puny little brains is pretty staggering. I was talking to a veteran police officer the other day, and he'd asked me if I was still enjoying myself as a peace officer. When I replied with an enthusiastic affirmative, he told me that usually people in this line of work get burned out around the 6-year mark, and it's usually because they get frustrated at how much they're supposed to know, and how much responsibility they have, and how little money they make for it.

Who knows... perhaps I'll get that way around the 6 year mark, but I knew going into this that I wasn't doing it for the money.

But anyway, the Academy is certainly an interesting experience (though I admit that some of the criminal justice classes can be a tad bit tedious.) Today we had no classroom work, but instead, as a class (i.e. in formation) ran 1.5 miles to the heart of Camp Villere (the National Guard base where the Academy is held) and went through the "Ropes Course." There's actually not a whole lot of ropes involved--it's just about 8-10 team building/trust building/problem solving exercises. In one we had to figure out how to get twelve people across a log--six from each end of the log, so that the people had to pass in the middle of this rather narrow log. In another, each person stood on a 5-foot high platform, and fell back into the arms of the rest of their team members. It's actually loads of fun, and I highly reccomend anyone who has the chance to go through one of these courses to do so. It was originally designed as a morale booster for inner city kids, but lots of big corporations will send their executives through this sort of thing as well.

Oh, and then we ran 1.5 miles back.

So, we've had one test so far... and I managed to make the highest score in the class on that first test. [preen] Oh, and much to my chagrin, my clasmates--those evil bastards--voted me the class president of our Academy.[mild grimace] I had sort of hoped to not make any waves or anything, and just do my thing and graduate, but I can see that's not going to happen now. (Not to mention the fact that being the class president carries with it some extra responsibilities, which I hope won't get in the way of my academics.) Okay, well, I can grimace about being elected, but of course it was pretty cool to be recognized by my peers like that.

In other news, my dad's funeral was this past Wednesday, and there was a gratifyingly huge turnout for it. I think there were close to two hundred people there--which was really delightful to see. Dad was very personable and very well-liked, and I think that darn near everyone who'd known him turned out for the leave-taking. Made the whole thing pretty nice, actually.