January 9th, 2014

I forgot to put the date on the previous entry. Oh well.

Ooyodo seemed like she still can't get over the fact that I handle all the paperwork without really needing her help. This morning, the fax machine was churning out paper after paper, report after report for me to read and analyze and do whatever the crap I needed to do. Ooyodo kept looking at the fax machine, like she was nonverbally begging it to stop. I asked her why she kept glancing at the fax machine, and she said that I might get pissed off at so much damn paperwork. I just laughed at her again. I told her that paperwork was the easiest shit that a naval officer had to do. It might be boring to some, yeah, pencil pushing and all that, but personally, I don't care. I don't mind pencil pushing at all. Part of it's because some of these reports and papers are actually pretty important, as most of them that I got today was regarding logistics and supplies that we would need later for the ship girls' drills and whatnot.

The other part of the reason's that if I'm pushing pencils all day, that means I'm not out in the field fighting and killing people and watching people die.

I noticed that Error's having a bit of trouble with Batsubyou the cat lately. Maybe the cat doesn't like her. At one point this morning, Batsubyou ran over to my desk and curled up at my feet. Error looked devastated as fuck. I tried to nudge the cat over so that Error can pick her up again, but Batsubyou stared at me, like she was telling me "The fuck are you doin', bitch?"

I placed an order for catnip on the supply request return report and told Ooyodo to fax it back to headquarters in Tokyo. Hopefully that catnip'll come in tomorrow.

Error ended up sulking around the base for the rest of the day. I didn't tell her about the catnip. I like the idea of surprises, you know? So I'm really hoping that catnip comes in tomorrow. I'm not really in the mood to look forward to dealing with one of my secretaries sulking around giving everyone dirty looks just because her cat isn't particularly friendly with her anymore. I didn't feel like telling her that she ought not to hold Batsubyou like she normally does all the time.

Oh, shit, a cat doesn't like to be held up by its front legs up in the air? You don't say, huh...

Pretty sure if Error reads this, she's gonna pluck my eyeballs out or something. I don't know what she'll do.

After paperwork and reports and shit, I decided to break out the pistol I brought with me to Okinawa for some target practice. I need to keep my marksmanship on point, after all - can't use the excuse of being assigned to a foreign deployment to let my marksmanship tank like a bitch.

It's not a flashy pistol or anything. It's just a simple Beretta M-9, the standard issue of pistols back when I was in college at Hargrave. My own drilling instructor let me keep it because back then, I was a crackshot with it, best in my class for pistol accuracy, even though it's technically not allowed for officers in training to keep issued firearms. I guess those three back to back 50-meter pistol marksmanship championships actually meant something after all, looking back. But that was like two years ago. Two years is a long time, at least it is for me. That's a full ten percent of my lifetime. Shit can change real quick in two years.

I used the empty fuel barrels for target practice, the ones that looked like they were the most badly damaged or in the worst conditions. I don't have much ammo, only the three magazines that were already inside the pistol case, but I've placed an order this morning for more 9mm. Thankfully, I still know how to shoot.

Then again, seeing the deployments I've already been on and considering the times when I've had to shoot that pistol, why would I ever think my accuracy would get any worse?

Fifteen rounds. Full metal jacket. One precious magazine, two remaining.

Reminds me of the time when I had to be deployed to Baghdad, when I only had two mags in my M4 remaining, and we were gettin' swarmed by insurgents.

It's best not to think about those times now.

Fubuki came to watch me practice-fire onto those fuel barrels out in the pier. She asked me why I put the fuel barrels so far out in the pier, and I told her that it's to prevent any stray bullet from ricocheting from the barrels back into the base and accidentally hit someone. She then asked me why I was using fuel barrels as practice targets if that was my concern, and I told her that if she could find me something better to use as a target, I'd be more than happy to replace those barrels.

She asked me if she could shoot my pistol once. When I asked her why, she immediately apologized and tried to run away - I'm not kidding, she looked like she was about to run away - but I called out to her to have her stop. I asked her why she was trying to run away, and she said it's because she asked something that she shouldn't have ever asked, which was to ask a superior officer if she could handle his firearm. I'd imagine that's against standard Japanese military protocol, but like I could give two shits about that. According to the Moebius Four Armament agreements, the American officer sent to train the ship girls, me, is exempt from Japanese military law, so as long as I'm not doing anything obviously criminal or my ship girls don't report me enough times to headquarters in Tokyo to warrant my arrest and/or removal, I can do whatever the fuck I want.

I repeated myself, asking her again why she wanted to shoot my pistol, and she said it's because she's always seen these kinds of personal firearms before when she was first constructed and was stationed over in the mainland and always wanted to try shooting one. So I reloaded a fresh mag for her and told her to shoot the entire mag so that I could see how good her accuracy was. Initially she just kinda stood there, like she wasn't sure if I was just being sarcastic and screwing around with her or if I was serious. I basically had to put the gun itself in her hands to make her realize I wasn't just bullshitting her, so she shot the mag out. Every single bullet she shot hit the exact same place on the barrel she shot at.

Turns out that's the first time she's ever shot anything.

Then again, in hindsight, now that I think about it, I suppose it makes sense. These ship girls aren't just normal humans, after all. They're the world's first artificial intelligence - human hybrids. Technically speaking, they're androids. But whoever worked on their behavioral and personality algorithms did a fucking fantastic job of it, since they sure as hell don't act like what we'd think of androids. Go up to some random guy off the street and introduce them to one of these ship girls and ask him if he thought they were androids, and he'd say no every single time. Unless he met Murakumo, then he'd find those floating head arrays fucking weird.

I asked her how her accuracy was practically 100% even though that was the first time she's ever shot anything. Fubuki explained that all the ship girls, including Samidare, Murakumo, Inazuma, and Sazanami, everyone, basically, were loaded with targeting programs for their ship guns. The programs are also apparently able to be transcribed and edited to assist with their accuracy while using personal firearms. So if I'm getting this right, it's basically like the girls knowing how to shoot a gun without ever seeing one. I guess that's why Fubuki was itching to shoot my pistol. I mean, I can understand. If you have this spontaneous knowledge of how to do something but you've never had the chance to actually put that knowledge to use, I can see why it can bother people.

I asked Fubuki if I could inject a program like that into my own brain so that I'd always have perfect accuracy with my own shot, but Fubuki said that an operation like that would kill an ordinary human like me. Well, there goes my chance of being the world's greatest sharpshooter. Not that I gave a damn.

After drills, I went to my office again to take care of the afternoon paperwork that Ooyodo put on my desk from the fax machine while I was out drilling the ship girls, but my attacks came again.

What I mean by "attacks" is that I have this weird fucking thing about me that causes me to get all drowsy and sometimes fall asleep during times when either it doesn't make any physical sense that I'd be falling asleep or when I really shouldn't be falling asleep. It's gotten me into a lot of trouble before, making people think that I was falling asleep during class or during conferences because I was bored, which isn't the case at all. I've had this condition since I was in middle school, starting in eighth grade. I'd just find myself falling asleep during one particular class period, which, back then, was fourth period, right before lunch. It didn't help that my teacher back then always caught me falling asleep, and everyone would laugh at me. I have no idea what it is. My parents know about it 'cause I've told them about it before, but they just pass it off as me not eating enough or something, so I have no idea whether it's a medical condition or a physiological condition or whatever fucking condition it might be. It could be anemia, narcolepsy, whatever. But as it stands, ever since eighth grade, my brain randomly chooses a time during the middle of the day to shut itself off and make me to go sleep. It only does this when I'm sitting down, mainly when I'm sitting for a lecture or conference or doing paperwork or homework like this, but it's fucking annoying. I've eaten well, I've slept well, I've done everything I could before to see if doing those things would make it go away, but I'd still find myself with my head on my arms on my desk, wondering why the hell the clock reads eight thirty at night when just a second ago it said five thirty.

That being explained, I had another attack this afternoon. By this point, I'm already well aware of this "condition", so as soon as my head starts to bob up and down and my vision becomes blurry, I know it's starting to act up. The best way to stave it off, I've found, is to get up and walk around, but there's two problems with that: after I come back and sit back down, my brain feels like a 7-11 Slurpiee that's been sitting out in the sun for an hour, and the second and harder problem's that once the attack starts, it's the most fucking difficult thing to just get up in the first place. It's like my legs become superglue, stuck to the ground like a goddamn statue.

The freakiest part of the attack is that because I'm trying to fight against it, my eyes start to shake, like I'm having a seizure or suffering a panic attack or something. So if you were to see me going through a sleep attack, I'd be sitting at my desk, maybe with one of my hands on my cheek or something, looking down at my desk, and my eyes trembling harder than a phone on vibrate.

You can imagine what Ooyodo was thinking when she saw me having a sleep attack for the first time. Poor Ooyodo...she tried to give me CPR because she thought I was suffocating or hyperventilating or some shit, and thankfully her doing that woke me up and caused the attack to stop.

I had to explain all that to her, saying that it wasn't anything life threatening or something like that, just something weird that's been with me for a long time. She didn't look like she wanted to believe me, like she was convinced that I was about to fall over dead within a matter of minutes. She asked if I was sure about it, if I wanted any medical help, that she'd send for a helicopter that would fly me over to the nearest military hospital within ten minutes. I told her to calm down.

It took some time for her to get her nerves back, but I've got this feeling that she feels a sorta responsibility to be in charge of my health. Earlier tonight after cooking everyone my naval curry again, after I retired to my room for the night, I thought I heard someone walking by my room at least four times an hour. If I wait a little longer, those footsteps'll probably come back.

Damn...and I went for so long without having an attack like that. Looks like my streak's been broken.