BWAR.

Nothing too fancy. Basically same "costume" as last year, except I dunno if I'll be going to school in it. All I know is that I'm going to be drinking looking like a bunny. :3

HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

I ain't got no learnin'.

:3

More to come when I get home. Possibly will be digesting caik and making it into poo.

More details to come.

Edit: I drew this. Not as nice as the little ones I was doing in class today, but meh. It'll dae. It's a turtlebunny. ^-^

Alrighty. So, as part of our course, we have to go out and find a place that'll take us in as job shadows/volunteer for 2 weeks or 60 hours, whichever comes first. We have to ask questions to 3 people (employer, journeyman, apprentice, whatever), submit them with an evaluation form from the supervisor, and a log of our hours worked.

I call this one place up, musting up some courage because I hate being made to call someone I don't know. So I leave a message (something I can't stand to do), and I try this other place, then give up because they have an answering machine taking calls.

About 20-30 minutes later, I get a call back from this gentleman, who I presumed was Italian just because of the things he said (stupid me, always assuming). He agrees to meet with me and discuss shit about the job shadow. That was yesterday.

So I plan to get all nice and prettied up--some nicer-looking clothes than what I wear to school, along with some pumps and some makeup. Look nice to impress like it was a job interview, might as well. So I pack everything, head over to school. Find out that class was out earlier than I thought, and getting there wasn't too hard or too far, and the meeting(I scheduled it at 4:30 so I'd have time to get there from school with time) should be rescheduled so we get stuff done earlier and everything. So I call him after I pretty myself up in the school bathroom, he says alright, so I head off.

I'm nervous as hell going, I'm carrying my work boots with me, wondering why I bothered bringing them in the first place, since all I thought we'd do is a quick tour of the place and get a form signed out to bring back to school. My feet are starting to kill me--when you've been on your feet for a few hours in hot workboots, your feet get bigger. My shoes are from 2 years ago for prom, so they are a bit tight, and are starting to bite into my toes. I walk from the bus stop, wondering why it's all residential. And if, by the time I get there, there is some workshops or warehouses where the guy was based out of.

I finally reach the address, and look at this small house with two white delivery trucks in the back. Oh lovely. I'm scared to go up there and knock, since it's on the opposite side of town, and I have NO clue where I am, basically. I don't know where the bus stops are, nothing.

I go up and knock. A short, old Latino man opens the door and sticks his hand out to shake mine. He introduces himself and invites me in, showing me to his kitchen table. I sit down, and he tells me to look through these two large binders of pictures of him doing welding and whatnot. He asks me what something was called (I still don't know, I still don't really care). So he tells me to put on my boots to show me his truck, which is a cornocopia (I DON'T CARE ABOUT SPELLING FUCK OFF) of welding shit. For a 70 year old man, it was pretty cool how he was swinging around and lifting stuff.

He got me to show him that I can cut metal using oxyacetylene. I had to do it a certain way, and show him how much 1/4" was. I was trying to figure it out with the WAY I WAS TAUGHT HOW TO READ FUCKING CALIPERS IN SCHOOL. He made a piggy snorting noise at me (no joke), and was telling me how to find out how to convert from x/16" to x/32" or whatever, and what each line on a ruler was. @_@ Yeah. I couldn't understand him. So I cut the metal as asked (with a welding jacket, no beanie to keep my hair away from the sparks so I wouldn't catch on fire, nothing to cover my trousers with (they could EASILY go up in flames no problem)).

So he tells me that if I saw people looking at me and doing this (this being a girly giggle and turning away) that I was doing something wrong. Might be something to do with the fact that I'm a woman, or that I fucked up somehow. Dunno. And that I remember his way for things, but to keep my mouth shut during school about how he does things. HM. I WONDER WHY.

Anyways, he shows me stuff inside his truck, and tells me I'd be his first gringa helper. As well as this, he said he'd pay me ALTHOUGH WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO.

Gah. Have to explain this to my teacher(s) tomorrow. They told us that if we felt unsafe at all, to call them, and they'd arrange a job shadow. You know, instead of doing that in the first place for shops that know what job shadows are and everything.

:/

Also forgot I was supposed to donate blood today. Whoops.

For the next two days (well, today and tomorrow), we're doing our unit on millwrights. So we're in the millwright shop, doing these tool gauge pieces of shit.

Anyways, I'm at the tool shop, asking for a scribe. Just A PIECE OF METAL WITH A POINT SO I CAN MAKE A MARK ON MY METAL.

This douchebag, who I presume is a student/apprentice/whatever, comes up to the counter and leans on it.
"You know, a SCRIBE, in biblical terms, is a guy who writes. You want a scribeR."

Meanwhile, the tool guy has gotten me my SCRIBER, he knew what I wanted.

I walk away, rolling my eyes.

It's nice, you know, the silent taunts and jeers my class gets when we're doing our trade units. Just because we're girls, doesn't mean we're shit.

We do a better job than the boys, anyways. ;)

Edit: As I was saying, wadeisstillgay is still pretty silly.

It's the time of year that I crave through all the other seasons, watching and waiting.

It starts cooling down, making warmth a valuable commodity. I won't be complaining about being too hot, because being cozily warm is what autumn's all about. Scarves come out, as do the boots and toques. Warm mittens make their annual debut. The heavy coats are abundant, browns and blacks, neon pink and green ski jackets pepper the dark earth colours that are in a crowd.

The days get shorter, the nights become longer. It gets harder to roll out of bed when the stars are still out at 8:00 AM. Our beds become our refuge in our want to hibernate.

The wind cuts right to our skin, leaving cheeks in a lasting blush. The rain starts falling almost daily, a cold sunlight warming our souls.

The leaves start falling, underneath our footsteps they sing a wonderful harmony of a year gone past, and the need to die and to later be renewed. The flowers die off, spreading their seed so their children may survive the cruel winter and thrive in the rejuvenation of spring.

The smell of fireplaces roaring in a cozy living room is a calming smell that one can be engulfed in while walking outside the spectrum of daylight. The telltale smoky bonfire smell warns us that Halloween's on its way, and that Christmas isn't far behind.

A beautiful night consists of the smell of fire, a chilly wind slashing at your front, and a hard, cold rain soaking you to the bone. Knowing you'll be coming home to warmth, a hot drink, and dry clothes makes me glad I have all three.

Autumn has come once again, and I am in my element.

So this week in my course was dedicated to welding with oxyacetylene.

I was seriously scared to start this, seeing as compressed oxygen and acetylene cylinders are literal bombs if you knock them down or fuck up in any way.

First day, we do our safety test--if we didn't pass, we don't get to do any welding until we do. I got 100%, but still lacked any confidence to do anything. We get out there in our fancy smancy coveralls, beanies, workboots, and goggles, looking TOTALLY sexy. We don't have to attach regulators or anything--basically everything was set up, except for attaching the cutting tip and setting our area up.

I didn't get ANYTHING done the first day, because I was a nervous wreck who didn't want to get explodededed. I even fucked up the shutting down process. >_>

Second day, we're doing a full day of cutting, from 7-1:30. I gain a ton more confidence, I crack open the cylinders, purge the lines, and am ready to get my ass in gear. I light my torch up, and honey, it was satisfying to be able to have 6000 degrees of heat in my power to melt metal. I learn to cut, to bevel, and to do a shit-looking radius/rounded corner on my metal. Woo. We worked outside near the ironworkers, which was interesting-ish. Got a lot of looks from the guys, seeing as we're an all-girls class, and we're *gasp* DOING MEN'S WORK! :P

Third day, we're inside doing oxyacetylene welding. Learning how to properly do a fusion weld, a weld with filler rod, and brazing with brass alloy. Fusion welds are so much easier to do than properly heating up and waiting for the fucking metal to puddle, and then adding filler rod SLOWLY, but making sure we didn't space it out, or use too much filler rod, like I learned on Friday. Brazing was fun, seeing as we only had to make the steel a cherry red before melting the brass filler rod. I still got my pieces that I welded. :) Didn't do anything more spectacular than 90 degree corner joints, but meh.

Fourth day, we're doing SMAW (shielded metal arc welding), which is the shit you see where the guys in shows like American Chopper are sending sparks everywhere, and have the fancy welding helmets on. This is the seemingly scarier shit, and I'm more scared than I was doing the oxyacetylene cutting--this is where electricity comes into play, and I'm completely gung-ho on not getting electrocuted. Me and my partner are standing in our booth, standing around because we're both scared shitless to start. Our instructor comes along, kind of pushes us to go, and shows me how to properly strike an arc.

It was absolutely beautiful, and awesome. I started off doing some shit beads, but the more I did, and the more used I got to trying to hit the steel in the dark (the filter glass of the helmet makes it near impossible to see what's going on when you're not welding, so as to protect you from getting arc flash, which is nasty), the more comfortable I felt about it. We started using bigger electrodes, and I got that down fast, doing wonderful looking beads like how the instructor was doing.

When I got home, I was decidely interested in getting my C-level welding ticket--in Alberta right now, in the oil sands, a person with a c-level welding ticket can get paid $110 an hour to do arc welding, and they get free high-quality room and gourmet food. So I'm like, FUCK YES.

So the last day came by, and it was time for my practical exam. We had to do a lap joint, as well as a corner joint. We had a different instructor since our usual instructor had a day off. We did several practices before getting our "test" pieces done.

This was fucking frustrating. I'm trying to do my lap joint, and the filler rod's going fast, and I can smell the burning leather of my gloves, sparks are hitting my neck, and my hand's getting a cramp from holding the torch. bleh. I finally got a lap and corner joint that I was finding acceptable in the beading, and I handed it in, glad that I was done that fucker.

Next week: two days of forklift training, two days of piping (I'm missing two days of piping to go to forklift. >: ( ).

SO yeah, I've basically recovered from the cold I had earlier. All that remains is a slightly stuffy nose, which I seem to have year-round.

So, for the last few days, I've been down at one of my school's satellite campuses, doing a unit on carpentry. Been having a ton of fun with that.

Built a small sawhorse, just need to sand it and hand it in, then I get to lug it on the bus. :D
Built a small "shack"--basically, a small, roofless three-room place that's 12' by 8' that will be destroyed on Friday so the two guys' classes can tackle the project. Built it so we have two doors into the "house", two partition walls, and two windows that go between the partition walls (Yeah, I know).

To tell you the truth, I had a ton of fun with the saws and hammering shit in. Only problem I had is that I am pitiful at measuring. So the unit ends tomorrow, and next week, we're doing welding. :D

GREAT FUN!

I think the cold medicine I took had something to do with it..

Alright, so I was on the computer, doing what I would usually do. Except I was chatting with Tim Allen and his TV wife from Home Improvement. I tried taking a picture of this for proof to show to people, but the weird thing is, when I was taking the picture, it wasn't Tim Allen who was in the webcam window.

It was this scruffy-looking guy with glasses. Apparently, he's known as this child molestor/paedo, and I knew it right away.

Out of fear I'd get in big shit with the cops over it, I ran outside into the dark streets, looking for this little girl who I somehow knew was going to go see him.
I find her, and she looks a bit like Maddy McCain, except with a longer face. She's toting around her computer tower with receipts on the top. I tell her to stop, and she does. So we hop onto this bus and we're driving along this country road.

We finally get off at a farm, and we look around. There are huge machine parts everywhere, and the one of the farmhouses looks dilapidated and old. We continue looking around, hoping to find someone, but who did we end up finding?

The Firefly family from House of 1000 Corpses/Devil's Rejects.

Later on, Baby Firefly, Captain Spaulding, and Otis were walking along in a fairground, where they come upon this weird hamburger stand. Baby wants this REALLY spicy chicken burger, so this Chinese vendor lady hands her the spiciest one.
Complaining about it not being hot, Baby throws it back, wanting more in it. The poor vendor puts more of the chicken and bacon in it (I don't know), as well as some pickles, and Baby eats it quite happily. Although by this time, she was thrown in jail with Otis and Spaulding.

And that is when I got woken up by Chris Martin singing about clocks, and the realization that my head cold is progressing into my throat. :(

Oh well.

I'm once again back to school after a year of working/visiting Fyndir.

HA, THOUGHT I'D BE POSTING ANOTHER PICTURE, EH? :P

Anyways, yeah. So I'm going to a tech institute to do an overall trades course, so I get to dabble in all kinds of neat shit, like aviation, automechanics, heavy duty, welding, carpentry, marine, among other things. 4 month course, not that bad.

The campus is not very far-spread, which makes it a ton better than, let's say, UBC (which is like, super-huge and everything's spread apart ftl). As well as the campus being smaller, the class sizes are small as well. My trades program has only 16 people in it (well, 16 women including myself).

My books costs less than $80, but then again, they're coiled notebook like textbooks. :P BUT STILL, BEAT THAT, $100 TEXTBOOKS THAT ARE USELESS. And there's a school store in the tech/design building I'm in, and there's a small wall with like, 30 different flavours/brands of ramen. HOW FUCKING COOL IS THAT? And they have a slurpee machine in there! :D:D:D:D

I feel like this big excitement will wear off.
But I'm waiting until after I learn how to drive a forklift to see if the fun wears off. ;) VROOM VROOM.

Course ends on the 20th of December.

My goal: Get my ass to Scotland by February. Look to see what kind of jobs/further education I can get there.

I'm hoping I get a bit of a waitlist if I do decide to go into electrical, just so I can see my honey for his birthday.

Plus, I got a travel voucher I should blow. :D

roflcaiks.

LOOK AT THAT SHIRT! IT'S ALL RIPPED!

Man, I was up since 9 last night, and I went to work, and I'm all like woooo.