Tech School Frustration

It seems my trend is to write a bunch of blogs posts in a row and then quit for many weeks at a time.  Sorry 'bout that folks.  But this one wasn't planned.

I would like to start by saying I know that having a husband serve in the military means that my family has to give up a lot of our control.  For (at least) the next six years, a lot of major life decisions won't be our decisions to make.  And I'm absolutely fine getting used to that.

But I think when the frustrations become a little too much to bear on my own, I'm going to need to vent a little.  So please bear with as I let loose my current level of frustration. 

Originally, we were told that Michael would go to eight weeks of BMT and ten weeks of Tech School.  Then we would move to our first duty station.  What we weren't told was that sometimes there is a layover between BMT and the start of classes at Tech School.  Luckily for us, that was only about ten days for Michael, instead of two months like some of his fellow BMT graduates. 

When we found out we were moving to Kansas, Michael was informed he'd have additional IFR training after Tech School graduation because of the aircraft he'll be working on.  The training is only eleven days long, but it was up to the instructor when he would start the class.  Well, we found out that date today.

Instead of the first week of June as we had hoped, Michael will start IFR training in the middle of June.  Which means he'll be done around the 1st of July.  He went from ten weeks to just under sixteen. 

If that wasn't frustrating enough, now we have to decide if him doing Recruiter's Assistant for the two weeks after training is going to make sense.  It would be great to him to have a few days to see family and friends before we move.  And to help me with all the moving preparations.

But my sister gets married the third weekend of July and if he does RA, we'll be moving the week before her wedding.  I'm not so sure I'm sane enough to drive ten hours in a car by myself, unload all our worldly possession in our new home (hopefully right away), and then drive those ten hours back to be in my sister's wedding.  And then of course, turn around a few days later and do the drive all over again.  I might spontaneously combust or something.

Of course, he still doesn't have his official orders yet so this could all change even more.  We could end up going somewhere completely different.  Which would mean he may not have IFR training at all.  Or he could have some other training.  Who knows, right?

I don't even want to think about how this all affects our housing situation.  We can't get on the waiting list for on-base housing without orders.  Ugh.

I know that the Air Force is a pretty large organization with a lot of stuff going on, and I get that.  I know we're not the only military family to face these problems--honestly, I think most families have similar frustrations every single time they move.  But I was hoping with all my might that our first move wouldn't be completely insane.

I should have known better.