I'm looking forward to hearing from my son this weekend. He messaged me last night and told me it was his company's "dining out" night (whatever that means) and that it was so much fun. He said he's going to call me and tell me all about it. He's usually pretty laid back, so to hear that he had so much fun that he wants to tell me all about it is pretty surprising. He usually only calls once every few weeks, so I'm looking forward to our chat.
Otherwise, he seems to be handling the "dark days" pretty well. He has good teachers this semester, classes seem to be going fine, and he says his company has lightened up on the Plebes compared to last semester.
A few weeks ago, he called us to talk about his summer training. He mentions that he will need to change his NOLS trip from third block to second block because he will have required cheer team training during third block, then he continues talking about zero block, cruises, leave, etc.... I'm like, "wait a minute. Back up. Did you just say cheer team.?" A girl in his company talked him into trying out because they need some new guys to lift them, etc... next year. He made the team and is excited about it. He said he'll be forced to strength train with the team instead of relying on his own good intentions. (Last semester, he played intramural basketball and let the strength training slide half-way through.) He also said if he gets good enough, he'll get to go to away games.
It's ironic to me that he'll be on the cheer team. He used to have good-natured debate with one of his friends that cheerleading was not a sport. I couldn't wait to tell her he was going to do cheer. He missed PRT last weekend due to a sprained toe. The first injury of his military career happens while trying to learn a backflip. His friends are going to give him such a hard time.