Thursday, February 2, 2012

Soldering, Missing Family and the Police Show Up!

Mr. Shado brought some wire and a soldering gun and some solder for us to learn how to solder last night! Well, most everyone had already soldered something before; there were only a few of us virgin solders. Virgin Solderer no longer! By the way, that’s pronounced “sodder” and not “solder.” It took me a few minutes to figure that out.

Here’s a picture of my first solder! Wouldn’t you know it, I made a bracelet. At first it was going to be for me, but then I talked to Rain on one of my breaks and she teared up with sadness because she hadn’t seen me practically at all the whole week. I told her I had a surprise for her and plan to put it on top of her glasses tonight so she can get it first thing in the morning. On the way home I started thinking of all the different kinds of jewelry these electronics could make. Bracelets and necklaces. I need to give that some serious thought. They have a bunch of different colors of wire that would make an awesome choker all put together.

That’s the really hard part of working during the day and going back to school at night: I hardly get to see my family anymore. I’ve learned that a few minutes of shared time with friends and family can make or break you. Just a little connection at night with ThatGuy and Nanook brings me back down to earth and refocus my energies, and seeing Rain in the mornings before I leave for work is the only time I get to love on her. Hearing her cry on the phone out of frustration because we kept missing each other's phone calls just broke my heart (she was in tae kwan do during my break and I was back in class when she returned my call). She said she wished I wasn't in school at all, which totally depressed me because I think school is a good thing for me: I get to learn something new that challenges me and makes me step way outside my comfort zone. That can only improve my perspective of the rest of the world and I'm trying to teach her that it's a good thing to do that. I also miss my Friday night meet-ups with my Knitting Girls, but at least I can catch up with them on the forums during the weekday while I’m at work. By the time 8:00 rolls around on Friday nights, I can't keep my eyes open anymore. I’d still like to see their faces, though--we're quite a close group.

Back in class: It turns out that Sleepy is quite the little delinquent, which doesn’t really surprise me. He’s heroin-skinny and walks around with his pants really low and doesn’t make sense most of the time. Whenever Sleepy says anything in class, Jiffy turns to me and says something like “that dude totally freaks me out.” Sleepy just gives off that weird vibe. So when the police show up at the beginning of class, I wasn’t too shocked to see it was for Sleepy. The cop asked him to step outside the class (and to pull his pants up while he was at it, which I thought was awesome). So Sleepy left with the nice officer and everyone pretended not to notice. I leaned over to Jiffy and said, “Are you surprised by that?” He replied, “Nope.” But Sleepy came back in a few minutes later and all progressed normally for the rest of the night.

We’re currently studying wiring and wiring diagrams and all that goes along with it. They have this really cool Toyota wiring structure they use for teaching the Toyota students. I had to take a picture of it to share with you all. It's awesome.
Mr. Forrest promised a trip to the garage on Monday so maybe (finally!) I’ll be able to touch a car.

3 comments:

  1. Unless the solder is stated to be lead-free, it has lead in it. Not a good idea for jewelry or for kids unless you buy the lead-free solder. Sorry to be a spoil-sport. Now, your idea of the different colored wire scraps all wrapped together, that would be cool...

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    1. I didn't think about that. Would have to go with lead-free!

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