Question about life in the marines?

Ok, so I want to enlist in a couple years, But im just having a little difficulty understanding what life is like in the USMC. Some websites say its like a normal job, but then i read some of the articles of the USMJ and theres a lot of things that you can accidently screw up on and get punished for. So i think my question is. What is life really like in the USMC? Is it relatively easy to adapt to the way of things? Are officers and Staff NCO's major hardasses? Thanks