We touched cars last night! And I have information overload. My main takeaway from last night’s foray into mechanics is that each and every car is very different. Trying to find out whether it’s a body-on-frame or a unit body, or 4-wheel drive or 2-wheel drive, or V6 or V8 or straight 6 or 4-cylinder, transmissions, trans-axles and differentials -- it’s all so confusing. Mr. Forrest went through several cars showing us the various parts of each car. By the end of the lab, I just followed him around like a little duckling trying to absorb any information he could give. “What this?” and “What’s that?” and “Tell me again what the difference is between...” and “What’s a transmission, again?” Bless his little heart, he never grew tired of me.
And then there were all of his “helpers” who thought they were doing good deeds by adding to the information Mr. Forrest was doling out. All-American, especially. He’s just so excited about all of his car knowledge that when he started describing how a CV (constant velocity) something-or-other works, I had to stop him in the middle to say, “Wait. What are we talking about again?” And I can’t get mad at him--his big smile and passion is quite contagious. And he should be passionate. All-American is a 23-year old (or, as he would say it, an “almost 24-year-old”) with an Associate’s degree in business and a double-major Bachelors' with some other kind of business degree. This mechanics degree is his “fun” degree. We should bless his little heart, as well.
Jiffy was also in an extremely good mood last night. When I acted like I was going to whop him over the head with this huge tool thing that Mr. Forrest was passing around, he said that I should just go ahead and hit him--it still wouldn’t bring him down. He’s normally such a reserved guy so I had to question him. See, there was this ex-girlfriend he was having a hard time getting over. She called him last Friday night to get together, but then he found out it was just so she could make her current boyfriend jealous. This episode helped him realize that he didn’t want her anyway so he sent her a nasty text telling her to bugger off and now he gets the closure he needed to move on with his life. That made him happy and since I like to see him happy, I get to be happy too.
And finally, little Rain has made her small screen debut on HBTV, the morning TV news program at her elementary school. She’s been a news anchor for the past two mornings. When I asked her how it went, she said she was “shaking like a bare naked Chihuahua!” I’m really proud of her (and told her so). Another example of how it’s good to step outside your comfort zone every once in a while. Not that she's incredibly shy in general, but this is a situation that made her very uncomfortable. Right now she’s a back-up in case someone is late or doesn’t show up, so here’s hoping that she gets a permanent position soon.
In class, we also discussed hazardous materials and their disposal. Did you know that one gallon of oil can make one million gallons of water undrinkable?
No comments:
Post a Comment