Blue Monday in Space

What a day.

Being a student at the Intergalactic Military School lends itself to a naturally exciting life, but today was quite the day. You could call it an excellent way to start off my new blog, but I think it may present a picture of my life more exciting than it actually is. Let me start at the beginning.

I woke up like I do every morning to the sound of whirring machines working at the nearby fusion research center, a way cool place that’s absolutely the bee’s knees. My space physics teacher, Mr. Corone, who teaches AP Physics J, used to be employed there before they drafted him into military service during the 8th Intergalactic War. The center creates quite the noise, and it’s always fascinating to wake up and think to myself “I wonder what they’ll discover today.”

And then my mom comes in and actually wakes me up.

So, I woke up, showered in my Bernoulli-class hyperdensity shower, brushed my teeth, and got dressed. I had to dress special today, in my Interstellar Combat uniform, for today’s match. I’ll explain that later. Anyway, I went downstairs, grabbed a Top Part for my breakfast, and put on my anti-razzle shoes. Unfortunately, it is customary to wear razzle shoes to school; not just customary, but mandatory. It is necessary in order to keep our feet on the ground in the microgravity at school.

You see, the Intergalictic Military School is on a space station: Space Station Lambda.

I had misplaced my razzle shoes, so I had to wear my anti-razzle shoes on the way to the shuttle, hoping for a miracle. Sure enough, the shuttle driver had found my shoes (I left them on the shuttle on Friday), and I was able to recover them before we arrived at school. Lucky break!

The trip to school was smooth, as usual. We docked and unloaded. I quickly marched through the halls to my locker, placed my space suit and anti-razzle shoes in my locker, and set out to locate my girlfriend.

Ah, my sweetheart. We had met a year before, our sophomore year of Awesome School, and it was love at first sight. Except for the part that wasn’t love at all. Which was most of it. However, we did fall in love, and by the end of the year, we were dating. You probably have heard the phrase “FaceBook official.” Well, in Andromeda, we don’t have FaceBook. We have SpaceBook. And we became SpaceBook official on Alkonate 38th, 1342 P.G. (That’s April 1st, 2009 Earth Time). We’ve been dating since then, so you can do the math on how long we’ve been together (the date is posted on the blog, in case you were wondering).

Once I found her, I walked her to her locker and helped her carry her stuff to class. Our first class of the day: AP Physics J with Mr. Corone. We arrived in class thinking the same thing: we had to use class today to finish our English essays. After Mr. Corone went over some basic psycliometrics with us, he sent us off to work on homework. Being the super student that I am, I managed to plow through some basic problems and get to the essay. My girlfriend, however, decided to work on the homework the entire period. By the end, we had about the same amount of physics done, and I had my shnazzy essay completed as well. Sweet. We then had a short break, which we spent sitting together and talking. It was great.

After that, we had to go our seperate ways. It was time for my Zirconian History Class, taught by the one and only Ms. Podstawa (Ms. P). The class was relatively uneventful today; we simply talked about our projects and stuff. Hard to believe any part of a day at the Intergalactic Military School could be “normal,” but it was.

After that, however, life got exciting. Really just because I got to see Lynn. Oh yeah, that’s my girlfriend’s name. So, we met up again for English class. It was fun stuff. We turned in our essays (she did hers during her previous class) and we then broke into groups for discussion, but our teacher, Mrs. Odinson, did not put us in the same groups. That made me unhappy, as is understandable, but I still got through the class. Next we had anticalculus, and boy is that a blast.

We have Mr. Vieux as our teacher, a man who is brilliant in many things, including Space Chess. Today in class, however, the topic was really basic, paraliotmetric equations. They’re like parametric equations, except much, much more complicated. That’s what makes them anticalculus. Anyway, we got through that, and then it was time for lunch! YEAH!

Well, except for the fact that I had no money. I walked Lynn to class and had to borrow from a friend. Then I went down to grab my lunch, before getting into a game of Space Chess with another friend of mine, Ned. Space Chess is a difficult game; like chess, but in 3 dimensional space, where all the effects of microgravity are brought into play, and where the pieces are much more advanced than feudal pawn and queen. It was a tough match, fought fairly evenly until I blew it and was checkmated, bringing the game to a close. I finished my meal and prepared for physical education.

Now, I understand the importance of physical fitness, but let’s just say it’s not my thing. The unit we’re in right now focuses especially on projectiles in microgravity, and I’m absolutely awful at it. However, Lynn is in my class, so things work out well. Although my team did not win any of the games, we still had fun. And then it was time for band class.

We had just finished a contest over the weekend, and today we sat around and received our scores. Overall they were pretty good, but my group scored rather low. The reason? Our judge thought that our group required one more member than it actually did, so we lost points. Our band director notified the contest and the problem should be straightened out shortly.

What really hurt during band class was that Lynn, who shares that class with me as well, disappeared. I couldn’t find her. I looked for her everywhere (our director gave us most of the class to socialize after he handed out scores) and I was desperate. I did find her, right before class ended, and I was incredibly happy.

It was after band, the last class of the day, that the day got really exciting. See, I had to wear my Interstellar Combat uniform because today we participated in an Interstellar Combat tournament, the last of the season.

We rode our shuttle down to the site of the tournament, a small stretch of asteroids not too far from Zircon. I rode next to my girlfriend, who is also on the team, and it was a fun ride. We arrived at the site and got prepared for the tournament. Everything was set to go, but then things got crazy.

Mr. Corone, who also happens to be the coach of our Interstellar Combat team, wanted to make sure that all the students who would be graduating soon would get a chance to participate, so he didn’t let me play at the beginning. I understood his reasons and hold no resentment, but I am our team’s top player.

This is how the sport works; five players are in at a time, one Admiral and 4 commanders. I’ve never been able to serve as Admiral (I’m a year too young), but as a commander I’m the best on our team. The object is to win the battle against your opponent that plays out on the asteroids, all simulated by remotely controlled model space ships and soldiers.

So, I sat the first half of the first game out, enjoying spending time with Lynn. It was quite wonderful. Without me playing, our team did quite well. Mr. Corone put me in for the second half of the first battle, as well as my girlfriend, and we held a comfortable lead. I had orders to secure an asteroid, and I failed miserably. Lynn was able to divert a few of her forces to help, which saved the battle, but I felt like I had failed. Still, I was proud of her; this is not her specialty at all, but she pulled it off beautifully.

The next battle I was not played again, which makes sense, and I watched from the sidelines with Mr. Corone and Lynn. I was quite disappointed with how the battle was going, and although I knew we were up against a brilliant Admiral and we were faring well under the circumstances, I knew I could do better. Mr. Corone did too, so he put me in.

Unfortunately, I blew it again. I had the chance to turn the tide of the battle in our favor, easily. Our opponents Admiral had a small fleet baring down on our capital asteroid (the capture of which wins the battle), threatening our position. However, this move left an opening in their defenses for me to exploit and secure the victory. I saw it in front of me, but then , right when I was about to initiate the assault, I second guessed myself and moved to intercept the fleet heading for our capital asteroid. My small band was annihilated, and the battle was lost soon afterwards. I had failed my entire team today, and I knew it, but for some reason, no one was mad. Especially not Lynn. Oh, my beautiful Lynn, how she lights up my life…

After the tournament, Lynn and I went out to eat. We happened to run into my family there, and after the meal we all went home. I finished up a lab report for AP Physics J and then wrote this blog. Next I intend to go to sleep. This is pretty much an average day for me; maybe tomorrow I’ll start to explain in greater detail some of the intricacies of my life. Good night all.