CLC3 Day 95: Chinese DLPT, ICOS "retraining"

The Army may have dropped Korean from its list of critical languages (meaning no proficiency bonus) and indefinitely suspended all tuition assistance, but I still plan on study to reach the 2/2 level once I'm there.

Before going, though, there was the small matter of the Chinese DLPT I'd scheduled back in December. I'd picked a day that I thought I wouldn't be busy, and lo! the appointed day finally arrived.

I didn't expect to do "well," because I only studied it for a year (and that was six years ago), but I've learned nobody cares exactly what level you're at anyway -- they just look at your ORB and say "Wow, you know ____? That's cool."

In my case, that's a good thing, because I only got a 1 in reading and a 0+ in listening -- a far cry from the 2 I got in the State Department's oral test back in spring 2007.

In other news, this morning we did the exit PT test for the course, which hardly anyone was motivated for. Usually I like to post my APFT scores, but not this time -- the GAFPB has been my training focus recently, not the Army standards. I simply went through the motions and made sure I passed.

I also sat through a couple hours of ICOS retraining, which was only moderately helpful. Of the 120-something people in the course, 11 of us failed. Of the 11 that failed, 4 came from my team -- a more than 20% failure rate. The good news is that I now have a concept of what sort of layout I need to have, an idea of what I need to include, and a plan on how to get there.

I may only have one day to finish everything before turn-in on Friday, but I can do it.