Hello again. Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Sorry it's been so long since my last blog. It's amazing how busy things have been for me the last couple of months. I've been trying to backtrack on my first and second year experiences since I started this during my third year. Unfortunately, I could talk for days about that, and I haven't had the time for that. So, for the time being I'm only going to talk about what I'm doing now.
Time, it's something that the apprenticeship is going to take from you! My class just finished a take home test/project. We're studying motor control (LOVE IT), and our project was to design
and draw a diagram for a manufacturing process. I feel like I have a good handle on the subject, but let me tell you something. I had a total of two weeks for that project, plenty of time, right? My rough final draft was done two days early, giving me plenty of time to draw and label everything neatly. I was even lucky enough that the day before it was due was a holiday, so I had a whole day to work on it. With no
exaggeration, I can tell you that going from rough draft to finished test took me about nine hours of solid work(10 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. with short breaks to change diapers, eat, and such). What makes it really bad is that I wasn't even close to satisfied with what I turned in, and I only put in about twenty minutes on what I thought was the easiest part of the assignment. All I needed to do was list the number of wires that would be needed in various conduits for our circuits, but at 2:30 in the morning, nothing matters but sleep. I could have stayed up a little later, but then I ran the risk of oversleeping, and missing a strict deadline.
I've got nine days to finish all of my homework and study for the next test, and I guarantee that I'll be up late on the eighth night trying to finish. It seems to me that this program is designed to be hard to fail. Go to class, do your homework, study, and get tutoring if you need it. If you don't have the time for all of those things, you can probably get by, but you're going to struggle all the way.
Still working for Dyna in D.C.. I think I've worked the last six or seven Saturdays, which is NICE. I always say yes to overtime, because you never know when you'll get it, and if the bosses know I want it, maybe they'll ask me first. It also seems wrong not to take it when there are a thousand men (and women) in our local that are out of work.
Right now
, I am running pipe for space heaters in a loading dock. It's not exciting, but it's good work for me, and I'm enjoying it. Since I've been working here I've done a lot of things that were new to me, like tying in switch gear, transfer switches, and other gear. Hopefully my luck will continue!
That's all for now, good night.
