I just found this notebook in my desk in my apartment.  I'd forgotten about it, and only just reread what I'd written.  It's been an humbling experience, being here over the past few months.  It hasn't broken me, not as I'm now sure my old Captain believed it would, but it hasn't been easy.
 
I've caught a person or two, but nowhere near a many as I used to before I transfered here.  The criminals here, they're a more slimy brand, they seem to slip through my fingers often.  Thugs line the streets as much as law abiding citizens, and not all law abiding citizens dress well and maintain their appearance.  Most of them look just like any other thug, and it's made for paranoia on my part.  I hardly know whether to greet someone or take out my cuffs.
 

Dec 5th
Last evening I went on duty for the first time in Dead End.  Not minutes after I was on the clock, dispatch reported a potential kidnapping at Lulu's bar.  By the time I got there, all was quiet, and the locals seemed apathetic about the whole thing.  At first I thought they might not have seen anything, but it wasn't that.  It was a lack of concern.  Officer Risk Douglas, a new acquaintance, was on scene shortly after me.  I sent him one direction and scoured the streets on foot in the other, but fruitlessly.  They were gone, and I couldn't even find someone who'd seen which way they went.  My first call, and I failed.  I'm not a beat cop or a patrolman, but old habits die hard.  I should have gotten this one.
 
I've barely gotten to know the city at all.  That's an outright lie, I don't know it at all.  My Captain would be disgusted with me if he knew how I handled that.
 

Nov 29th, 11:05 PM
It's finally happening.  I've written plenty in the past about how much I've wanted to be a Detective.  Anyone who read my journal (and no one had better, by the way) would see the pages and pages of notes on tests, or personal little investigations.  At last, though, it's all come true.  Today, I was called into the Captain's office to be given the good news, and my new badge.  I've been promoted!  I made Detective!