I guess this is the part where I introduce myself...

Confession: I've actually never kept a blog before, this is genuinely my first time publishing my thoughts to the world wide web, so we'll see how it goes.

My name is Eric Bernau and I'm currently in my fourth, and final, year at the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY.  This year I am serving as the Brigade Public Affairs Officer and having an absolute blast doing it.  My job is basically to personally, and find other cadets to, speak with the media, celebrities, public figures, and basically deal with anything external that comes to West Point and anything internal that leaves West Point in terms of media and relations.  It's a pretty legit job, but I actually think Public Affairs Officer isn't a very "sexy" title, so I've begun the process of changing my title to Brigade Propaganda Minister, which I think flows off the tongue a lot better and just sounds so much cooler...

I'm originally from Rochester, MN and never actually left the tri-state area (Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin) more than a few times before I left for the East Coast to begin my West Point experience back in the summer of 2006.  I've basically been spending the past few years making up for lost travel time by exploring New England on my weekends and traveling to Belize, Honduras, Korea, the Air Force Academy, and taking 3 trips to China (one of which was a semester abroad).  As one could probably guess, my major here at the Academy is Chinese and I love it.  Languages and culture have always facinated me and China is so different from America I just can't learn enough about it to satiate (my favorite word) myself.  Another reason I love my major?  My title in Chinese is xuan chuan bu zhang which translates back to Propaganda Minister, how perfect is that?

Anyways, I'll be covering Navy week here at the Academy as we prepare ourselves to beat our rivals in Philadelphia this Saturday so hopefully everyone can follow along and experience it along with me!

Talk to you soon, Eric