Finally started

After many years of waiting, I have finally started UPT. We started on the 14th of August with some basic intro stuff and then we moved on to Aerospace Physiology for the last week and one day. Phase 1(the first six weeks) is dedicated to academics and getting to know your flight. We are doing pretty well with that aspect. We have had people over several times, including the entire flight last weekend. The info that we are learning in class is pretty basic, but it is still pretty useful. We spent a day just doing classroom lectures on what to expect from our oxygen system, ejection seat, and parachute. We got to go on a "chamber flight" where they put us in a pressure chamber and took us up to 35,000 feet. Then we had to take off our masks so that we could learn what our symptoms of hypoxia were, in case it ever happens in the aircraft. We also spent half a day learning how to land with our parachutes. That was fun, but it was pretty embarrassing doing PT in our flight suits out in the middle of the base.
Our class has some pretty interesting dynamics. We are pretty well spread across the age and background spectrum. We range from 23 to 30, 10 married, 4 guard, 2 reserves, 1/3 ROTC, 1/3 AFA, and 1/3 OTS and AMS. We also have two international students from Japan. It is pretty interesting getting to see the backgrounds where everyone is coming from. Rachael and I are meeting and getting to hang out with some pretty interesting people.
This coming week we are starting the rest of our academic program. We are getting into T-6A systems and some other basic lessons about the aircraft. We also spend a lot of the time getting the traditional "hazes". We have to put the flags out in the morning, keep the POW/MIA table looking nice, drive people out on the flight line, serve beer at the graduating class's assignment night, and a lot of other little stuff. But all said, it is really not that bad. We only have to do this kind of stuff for 2 more weeks, and then we have another class come in and take over the work.
We hit the flight line in about 5 weeks and that is when the stuff is really going to get difficult.