Novelty gone
20 Aug 2008 
around evening time 
Matt Winckler
What novelty there ever was about being at police academy has fairly worn off by now. Day in, day out, most things have fallen into a routine, and unfortunately it’s not all exciting and glamorous. Monday, for instance, we were treated to our first major test (which I scored 94% on, but the class average was 90%), followed by two hours of traffic law and two hours of report writing. Tuesday was four hours of criminal law, two hours of communications skills, and two hours of hate crimes. I can’t believe today is only Wednesday, but there were two hours of PT/DT, two hours of criminal law, two hours of traffic law, and two very exciting hours of collision investigation. I learned all about marks on the roadway and saw a picture of a pickup rolled onto its side, driver partially ejected and with his head smashed underneath the frame of the truck. The picture was taken from the passenger window (looking down). You could only tell it was his head because (apart from being attached to the limp body) the jaw was in the driver’s window, whereas the forehead was outside above the cabin roof. Pretty wild. Wear your seat belt.
Today in PT we went off-road and ran trails through some woods. It was an interesting change from running on asphalt through residential streets, but I don’t think we ran as far–it was pretty easy, at least for me. I am rather surprised to find that I’m in the upper echelon of the class as far as physical fitness is concerned, particularly running. (I came in fourth out of 30 in running during the PT test last week–though, as I said, the effort made me feel like vomiting all morning long.) So it’s sometimes a bit disappointing to end the running while I still feel like I could go a good bit farther. Today, happily, we also had no crunches or flutter kicks or anything of the sort. I thought about doing some this evening in the apartment just for nostalgia’s sake. Thought about it. Given that PT on Monday and today were much easier than last Friday, I’m getting ominous feelings about this Friday. In Defensive Tactics we learned how to handcuff a compliant suspect in various positions. I understand that on Monday we’ll start “customary searches” for detecting weapons concealed on a suspect. Ought to be good and awkward.
Week three is halfway done, but the days are still just crawling by. It pretty much stinks being away from your family all week long.
Tomorrow promises to hold a little more interest than the week thus far, as we’ll be doing the classroom portions of EVOC (Emergency Vehicle Operations Course) and firearms–four hours apiece.
Two more days and I’ll be done with another week, but in order to get through one of those two days I’d better go to bed right now.