So things have gotten pretty chaotic around here. A lot more so than most summers. I should be getting the next post in the deconstruction up soon, but I wanted to at least let you guys know what’s happening around here.
Right now, we’re entering RST (Reserve Summer Training) which would normally have me packing up to travel to 4 Div TC Meaford to teach. This summer however, the decision was made to disperse the training across the Province as a way of limiting the risks from COVID-19. So instead of moving into a cubicle in the South Dorms, I’m now going to be cris crossing the Province (and even the country) to support one course after another.
So I’m looking at a summer of travelling and teaching, with mandated isolation periods in between to make sure I’m not a disease vector. A couple of these courses might be in Ottawa, but others are liable to be in Pembroke, Meaford, and Sault St Marie, and who knows where else. So there’s quite a bit of uncertainty in the mixture this year. As a qualified and highly experienced instructor, I’m basically The Littlest Hobo for the summer.
A bit of early-1980s Canadian nostalgia, this is ‘The Littlest Hobo,’ a classic example of Canadian family viewing TV. Basically it follows this super-smart and heroic dog (London, although he has no name in the series) as he travels across the country, meeting different people who always seem to be in some kind of trouble, then helping them out before moving on. Imagine a lower-budget version of Lassie or Rin Tin Tin except with a rotating cast of Canadian actors to fill in the weekly roster of characters and situations.
So this is my life at the moment. Except that dog probably got paid better than me.
At the same time, there’s a bit of a debate going on within the ranks of NCOs and Officers who regularly instruct on courses as to how exactly we’re going to structure that training in the future. I’m not going to get into details (this would be a five thousand word post if I did) but it’s turning into a running debate across multiple chains of command, and in the process it’s eating up a lot of the time I would normally spend on writing.
That’s where things stand at the moment work-wise. A lot of stuff flying my way that’s thrown off my usual rhythm of writing. I then compounded the problem by trying to write about some recent news about the CAF for my ‘Women in the CAF’ category.
I’m not going to say it was a mistake, but the phrase ‘Drink from the Fire Hose‘ does come to mind. I’ve gone through multiple drafts for a post about my thoughts harassment and misconduct, with one version reaching nearly four thousand words before I had to delete some of the more ranting passages, and it’s still not looking close to done. Basically, my limp carcass got blasted across the room by the hose, and I got no one to blame but myself.
At the moment that post has been shelved (and from the way things are going, it will probably still be relevant if I publish it in June) and I’m most of the way towards finishing the next deconstruction post. Hopefully things will get back into a regular pace in the next few weeks.
In the meantime, please accept my apologies. And maybe check out The Littlest Hobo. It looks like a bunch of the episodes have been uploaded onto YouTube.
Putting Down Uprising 