Well it begins on a late, full moon evening. Mommy and daddy were in the bed •vinyl record stopping• okay we won't go back that far. Let's start with college. I originally was going to college for nursing school. I was almost to the year where I would start my clinicals and I decided to change my major to criminal justice. Why? I'm not quite sure. I'm still not able to control where my wild hairs go. So I went through 3 years of college, the whole time working up to 3 jobs at a time. Because I had changed my major mid-semester of my nursing courses, I didn't want to go to any of my classes, except for English and psychology only because I needed those anyway. The financial aid I had received for having a pretty extraordinary GPA- not to toot my own horn- had been put on probation and then suspension bc I didn't make up the work I missed from the classes I was skipping. So when I started my criminal justice courses I could only take at most 2 at a time for 2 semesters. I GOT MY FINANCIAL AID BACK. Hallelujah! So when I started my spring semester in 2014 I took 6 classes back to back (3 classes on mondays/Wednesdays & 3 on tuesdays/thursdays) I did that for 3 semesters then I was able to relax a little by last 3 semesters taking 2 classes a day for 2 more semesters. My instructor was amazing. He was very knowledgeable and took us on field trips so we could get a real world perspective of what we were covering in class. We went to the department of juvenile justice, the south Carolina supreme Court, death row in Charleston and so many more places. When I walked across the stage on graduation day I didn't only shake his hand, I gave him a huge thank you hug. I graduated that December of 2015, and immediately began filing out applications for LE agencies. March of 2016 I was working at Belk as a sales associate when a man asked me how much a group of mugs were. Long story short, he was an off duty deputy- Captain rather- and he helped me get into the hiring process. I started out in civil process until I got my Academy date. The South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy was a 12 week long course I had to attend (from May to August) to be certified as a LEO. Sunday night through Thursday night I had to sleep there in a dorm like room. Food was served by inmates at 6 a.m, noon, and 5 p.m. Defensive tactics and physical training went hand in hand. Legals, Domestic violence, crime scene investigation, sensitive cases (rape, sexual assault, child molestation, etc.) don't even begin to describe how many classes we took each week. Shooting and driving were done in the same week and it was so stressful. Repetition drives me nuts. Shooting the same thing the same way over and over again go very old, very quick. I was so stressed I found myself fighting back tears so I could see my target. Driving was a little easier. It was a true life experience I'm glad I only had to do one time. The heat was unbearable at times and the uniforms they had us wear were atrocious. When I started back at the agency in August, I was in field training for 3 weeks. When the 3 weeks were up, I was on my own. Well not really bc I always have someone else there if I need them. I love my job and I'm so thankful for all the support that I have gotten from.my family and friends and the other deputies I work with!