New Experiences... 3 weeks

Hello everybody.
3 weeks of the army have already passed. Time has been flying! Starting the second week we got right into things. Met our officers, our actual groups, broke down into smaller groups etc. We started running. The first week we ran about 2.5 k (1.8 miles or something like that) not at all a lot but it was difficult for a lot of people. Basically the first week was an adjustment week, they were not harsh on us so as to let us acclimate to things.
Starting the third week right away we started pushing. We did the bochein maslul (fitness test). At first we went through it with the teachers because it requires instruction. Parts of the test include jumping over a wall, climbing up ropes, crawling, monkey bars etc. It was extremely fun and hard. When I got to the end the first time, apparently my face was bright red because people were asking if I was about to pass out. I got back to my mefaked (officer) and he told me to do it again (yeah... I know...). So I did it twice, almost got stuck at the rope part because I had no strength left in my legs but passed it and made it to the end again. We all thought that since we had done this on Monday ( I could be getting the days mixed up... theres only two days in the week for me day I go home for shabbat and day I come back :-) we would get a break or something but the next day we did the fitness test. Eventually everyone has to pass this test to stay in a combat unit, it consists of 2k, pushups and situps. I did fairly well on the 2k, getting 8 minutes (6:24 mile) and finishing 15th out of 42 in our group. Thats good enough to pass but on the pushups and situps you need 75 and 86 respectively but I only got 31 and 57 (its all in a row). Kind of annoying because I know I could have done more situps and probably more pushups but in the moment you are nervous and it was hard to come through.
The next day early in the morning (6:30 or something) they told a couple of us that we needed to go to ulpan (language classes) for the next three days. I was actually really annoyed because we were getting our guns that day and I was excited. Plus the ulpan was a waste of time in the beginning and most people there didn't even speak a word of hebrew. Don't know if I'd give them a gun if I was in charge, but who knows. However, it turned out that one of the days in ulpan they taught us about the gun and took a while to explain it (in hebrew still) so it was very useful and we didn't have to carry around the guns without a strap for two days ( we had to earn the strap). All in all ulpan was very chill and the guys back on base didn't do anything real during the daytime anyways besides for classes. Really it was good that I was off my feet all day because that night we had a "krav maga"(self-defense class) and there was not much self-defense being taught really just a bunch of sprinting and pushups. They crammed a lot of people into a really small space so while we were sprinting people were getting hit and bloodied. At one point two people, one on either side of me used me as a starting point and pushed off my shoulder and I hit the ground. I was really annoyed because it hurt my knee so when I passed one of them the next time I hit him in the face (made it look by accident because everyone was doing it, not a violent person it was just necessary alright?). It was intense because the madrich (teacher) was yelling the entire time trying to intimidate us. Lets just say I was happy when it was over after about an hour or so of that.
So wednesday, the guys in the ulpan got our guns and prepared for the masa (um... translation is hike maybe? I'll explain it don't worry) that night. It was a 3k (2k=1.25 miles so about 2 miles) masa and the first one for us so it was very exciting. We got bullets to fill up the cartridges with to make our vest heavier for the masa and filled up some canteens. You know, running 3k isn't hard, running it with a lot of extra weight, well it gets difficult. At one point during the masa I grabbed a guys vest and someone got he from behind as he was passing out and we pulled him the rest of the way. It was a lot fun. Plus post masa for dinner they had pepsi and RC Cola, woohooo. Haha.
Then, Thursday was a relaxed day in Ulpan again. We had some tests but I passed them, no worries.
We "went to sleep" (why the quotations? because not actually, I stayed an extra hour because I had shmirah/guard duty soon anyways) at 8 that night because we were waking up at 1:30 Friday morning to leave for shabbat (weekend).
I went to the Hubschers for shabbat, had a great and restful shabbat and came back with clean laundry! So excited that I have sisters and cousins to prevent me from smelling up the place.
Starting this week we are learning how to shoot the guns (m-16) and moving things along quickly.
All in all everythings going well. The army is enjoyable sometimes but difficult and tiring most times. I just keep in mind that everything is making me into a better soldier and thats how I get through the tough parts. We will see how the next couple weeks end up being!
Shavua Tov.
P.s. my apologies for the poor writing with the run-on and fragment sentences. short on time!