It's about 2:45am as I write this. Why, you may ask, am I awake at 2:45am? My shift doesn't start until about 5am, and I certainly don't need well over 2 hours to get ready. Well, it's for the same reason that I was awake at 1:30am yesterday morning. (And no, I'm not that eager to get to work.) It's the fault of the [expletive deleted] mosquitos.

This has been going on for several days now. Mosquitos are making their way into my house, and then, in the middle of the night, the little bastards come buzzing around my head with that horrible high pitched whine of their nasty little wings--a whine which gets ominously higher in pitch the closer they come to my head, even though the covers are pulled up tight around my head and ears. And then there's the moment when the whining stops... and I know the creature has landed somewhere, and is probably biting me--which will then itch the rest of the night and continue to keep me awake.

So, I eventually get up in the theory that I'm not going to sleep anyway, and at least if I'm up and awake with the lights on, I can see the little beasts and kill them. I think I'm going to have to start spraying myself with OFF before I go to bed.

Well, my first day back on the street was a fairly uneventful one. I'm still with an FTO (Field Training Officer) until the end of the week, and then I'll be cut loose and be on my own the week after that. I'm glad that I had this last week of FTO training to finish up though. It felt awkward for the first few hours as I tried to remember procedures, and radio signals, and street locations. By the afternoon I was feeling better about it all though, and I think by the end of the week I'll be itching to try it on my own. I think it's going to be weird at first to not have someone in the car with me, though, even just for conversation. On the other hand, once I get my car to myself, I can get my "office" set up the way I want it, with my organizer in place on the passenger seat, and the shotgun behind the center console, and the computer set up the way I want it.

Cool thing happened yesterday, though. My FTO had to go to court, so I, of course, accompanied him. It was a fairly full docket (misdemeanor court) so there were a bunch of other cops there, many from District One (I work in District Two, and I know very few District One cops, since we almost never interact.) And while I was sitting down with all the other cops, in the place where all the cops sit while waiting for their cases to come up, a cop whom I've never seen before in my life came up to me from out of the blue, shook my hand, and said, "Congratulations!" I've been getting used to people I know offering me congrats on my academy performance, but now it's starting to come from total strangers! I asked my FTO about it on the way back to our zone, and he said, "Yeah, everyone knows who you are now."

Nice to know I've made a lasting impression in a good way.