Yep, that's my new vehicle! (Actually it's kinda old--one of the oldest in the fleet, but it's new to me, and supposedly I'll be getting a newer one in the next month or so.) But, anyway, it's parked in my driveway now, and I get to drive it to and from school. Pretty darn nifty, if I may say so.

The academy is still progressing along with nary a hitch. We've made it through three weeks, and yes, I've had the highest scores on all three tests so far. Heh!

But don't be misled...these tests aren't easy by a long shot. I'm studying my ass off every night, and we've already had two people flunk out. My mom asked me the other day what all we were being taught in the academy. I realized that most people have no idea what kind of stuff we have to learn, and the wide variety of knowledge we have to stuff into our little heads. I know that I had no clue about what to expect before I started police work.

So, a basic curriculum: Building respect for Police, Introduction to Mental Preparation, Definitions of legal terms, Orientation to the Criminal Justice System and the Louisiana Criminal Justice System, Community policing, Crime prevention, Preliminary investigation, Mental Preparation, Legal and Moral aspects, Introduction to the Criminal Justice system, Overview of the criminal justice system, First aid, Report writing, More report writing, Yet more report writing, traffic code, criminal code, Pre-trial line-ups, More criminal codes, Evidence and crime scene investigations, CPR, Methods of patrol, Ethics, Fingerprints, even more criminal codes, more traffic codes, Death notification, more friggin' criminal codes...

And there are a number of things we're required to know verbatim for the tests (or as the Captain puts it, ver-damn-batim.) Such as the definition of fingerprints: The impression of the intricate design of friction ridges found on the palm side of a person's finger or thumb.

But all in all it ain't unbearable, though I'm itching like mad to get back on the street. But at least this week we're going to be starting fun stuff like use of force, and defensive tactics.

And needless to say, there isn't much else going on in my life. Sorry I'm having such huge gaps between entries, but there's this little thing called available time that's in short supply, so, the journal gets put on the back burner pretty frequently. I am looking forward to the end of this academy though. I'm ready to start the attempt to have a Life.