Another week of classes has passed, and all the things I needed to do are now done. With a sip of tea, I hereby state...
The start of my last quarter!! 👀☺
Quite exciting, huh? It's crazy to think such efforts could make the time fly by at the same time as it stagnates. The way months can feel like only a few seconds ago should be studied somehow. It's really such a phenomenon that evades the understanding of us all. I like to think I'm multifaceted, and I continue to be, wanting to learn a bit of everything but not being able to decide a specialty. You are supposed to just focus on one thing during college-level, but I can't. Still, gaining little golden tickets for if society is still standing in a few years is good prep for the "real" world! I hope, anyway.
So now you're probably like, "well, how was your first few days?"
I'm getting there, hold your horses!!
Monday was orientation for new people, so I didn't have to go anywhere near campus. However, on Tuesday is when the adventures begun!! There will be no break like that again until labor day comes around... help me.
ANYWAY! What happened? Here's a fun long-winded summary 🎇:
We were introduced to tighter general rules. They are cracking down on phone use during school (outside of scheduled break times). They say any calls should be received/incoming only during those times. That part worries me a little, though, because what if someone's calling you for an emergency and then you get yelled at because you were just trying to help your friend/family member? They probably have exceptions for that.. but I digress.
This week was the week of safety, safety, SAFETY. We were all burying our noses in what not to do, what PPE we need, and what to keep in mind during welding processes. This has been a consistent link through all the quarter concentrations of the entire program, because we shouldn't just start doing stuff without prior knowledge, now should we? That wouldn't be a good idea! Turns out there aren't nearly as many 5th quarter welding students as I expected, because the majority of the classroom we're in has a bunch of 1st quarter people. I could tell because only a few of us already had a Chromebook, and since 1st quarter people were new people, they didn't have one until a few days in.
 |
| Probably me without the safety unit: |
Aside from safety being injected intravenously and being tested on it, we also tried on some welding jacket sizes to see which one would feel the best. I was given a small one at first (cause these are a bunch of boys and they likely think small = girl). Boys, boys, and BOYS!!!. It felt a bit tight on my chest, so I tried the next size up. There we go, that's more like it! I'm going to be wearing that thing a lot, I presume, as it's projected that there's gonna be welding projects like hell.
There's also two welding simulators in the entire building, and I took a stab at it. Y'know those arcade games where you hold a physical replica of an object and then you play the game by interacting with the game itself using the replica? It was like that, but with a touchable screen, a plastic "sheet of metal" and a fake welding stick. I practiced doing it in a straight line a few times. I was doing decent enough, but I did need to adjust my working angle. I also realized this wasn't that close to the real experience, as it was a simulation and I didn't need to deal with PPE and a loud environment yet. I'm excited (and also more nervous than ever) to see what the actual welding shop will be like. 
Finally, we watched a video or two throughout the week revolving around welding history and also nontraditional kinds of welding. Did you know underwater welding, plastic welding, and explosion welding were a thing? I SURE DIDN'T!! Welding underwater must take tungsten courage and a lot of training so it's not a suicide mission. Explosion welding doesn't even sound real, but it is. It can also join just about any metal together no matter how dissimilar they are to each other. And plastic welding... y'know those annoying clamshell packages that take the strength of Poseidon's waves to open? That is a product of plastic welding, and so are many things. It's a form of welding you can't even see with the naked eye! Absolutely intriguing.
Yes, a shorter one this time-- don't expect there to be a general baseline. I just type until I can't anymore.
I leave you with a quote I enjoy:
"My flabbers are GASTEDDD!!!"
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