I know this post is really, really long overdue, but I got a Skribit request that I write it, so I thought it was about time I got around to doing it.  I’ve mentioned Emory Rice day before, where I described the planned itinerary for the day and gave a brief description of what the day is.

First off, the marching competition.  First Company was, naturally, the first company to march.  I’d like to say that we did well, but I’d be lying.  We pretty much fell on our faces.  It didn’t help that there was a ship going through the canal while we were marching that happened to blow its whistle right as the company commander would give marching commands, but there are no asterisks in these competitions, so we weren’t given any leeway in scoring because of it.  We messed up a couple of times, but my personal favorite was when we were given the command “to the rear march” (everyone pivots 180 degrees at once, resulting in the entire platoon marching back the way they came) right at the ship blew its whistle, at which point the back half of the company turned and the front half kept marching because they hadn’t heard the command.  The entire thing was pretty classic.  We came in last for that part of the day.

During the day classes continued as usual, with one exception: dress-down tickets had been sold for the day, so the majority of cadets were in civilian clothes.  We usually have two or three dress-down days each semester, with the proceeds from the tickets going to a local charity.  I’m not sure where the money went for Emory Rice day, but I believe it was a charity.

That afternoon after classes we had a field day.  The school had rented a number of field activities, such as a rock climbing wall, a jousting table, a dunk tank, and a number of other things.  Various clubs and groups at school had their own activities as well.  The ROTC program set up an obstacle course on Cadet Beach, which I didn’t do but heard that it was pretty good (First Company won this event!).  In the mess deck, we had a cookout which was a nice change from the usual routine.  Unfortunately, it rained that afternoon or the cookout would have been outdoors.  That night they showed a movie in the gym, giving the cadets the choice of what movie to watch.  We chose Boondock Saints.

Emory Rice day was a lot of fun, and a great way to mark the end of the year.  I’m looking forward to it again next year, but hopefully it won’t rain again!

One of the activities they had at Emory Rice day was the jousting platform.  My room mate (on the left) spent plenty of time on it, as he seemed to be the reigning champion.  In this round, he was battling our platoon leader, which made it even more entertaining!

So usually I try to avoid writing these posts because I generally regard them as filler, but I thought it might be appropriate this week. We have some unique events going on over the next couple of days that I felt would be worthy of some introduction prior to my post-event write-ups that will follow (man, it’s just hyphen city back there, isn’t it?).

Tomorrow is Emory Rice day, which is our annual field day at the end of the year. The day starts off with a marching competition between the companies. Each freshman platoon in the regiment represents their competition, just as we did for Recognition back in September. This time is a little different however, because we will be marched by the upcoming company commander for our company, providing them with their first real experience in publicly leading the company as an officer. The afternoon is filled with activities aimed at providing us with some fun near the end of the year, such as an obstacle course done by ROTC and a rock wall. All activities are done by company, and are worth points towards Honor Company. I’ll explain Honor Company in a later post, so stay tuned for that.

Wednesday afternoon is Change of Command. Now that Coasties are over and we’re only weeks away from the end of the year, it’s time for this year’s graduating seniors to step down from their officer positions and hand the reigns over to the upcoming officers for next year. There’s a formal ceremony that will be held Wednesday afternoon on the Parade Field. Since I haven’t seen a Change of Command at MMA before, I’m not really sure the details of the ceremony. Since I’ll most likely have to be in formation for the duration of it I won’t be able to take pictures, but I’ll try to get some pictures to post from someone here at MMA (if there’s anybody reading this who’ll be here and would like to share their photos-maybe the Admissions office-I’d appreciate it, shoot me an e-mail).

Not much else to report from Taylor’s Point, except that the weather’s getting too nice for us to be indoors. I vote that classes start being held outside, who’s with me?