Adventures with gabby: Part 1

This is the first half of this particular Adventure with a Rinkydink; the second will be in mid-August. It pertains to the best weekend I've had in ... a good long time. I didn't proofread this and I have a penchant for brevity, so if parts don't make sense, I can clarify.

As several of you may remember, I received a position from ASE (Apprenticeships in Science and Engineering) which began in early June. Though I was interviewed for one of the positions I applied for, a more dubiously interesting situation arose when I was informed that I had been accepted for a different position--one for which I hadn't even applied! I took it anyway, because it surely would beat working at Burger King even if it did pay less. So now I work at one of the local power companies updating their old feeder maps, fielding to make sure the changes are correct, and setting up the distribution model. (Some of the information is older than I am!) It is very complicated, very slow, very repetitive, and very boring. I am grateful in the extreme that the changes I made, when crunched by the software, gave results all within one percent of the predictions. Otherwise, naturally, I'd have to start again.

The apprenticeship was half complete as of last week, and I am quite sure that I do not want to be a power engineer. Thus, the organization heading ASE was obligated to send me reminders of an upcoming conference using glowing terms to describe how much I should be enjoying myself. I had to go anyway.

With just a bit of anxiety, I crammed into the vanful of other kids, who quickly dispelled that feeling. We of course talked about our experiences at our apprenticeships. I actually got a bit jealous, which amuses me now. All the other kids in the group had jobs with the BLM, FWD, or the Forest Service. The refrain was, "I go to the office for ten minutes, then we go kayaking or hiking or snorkeling." What did I expect? Anyhow, upon arrival at the George Fox College campus where the conference was held, I met another kid who made me feel a lot better. He had been contacted late because the girl who previously had the position had quit, so he gets to work ten hour days counting shells. That's it. He counts shells for an archeologist. Everyone offer a sigh of sympathy.

It wouldn't make much sense to relate conversation, though that's most of what occurred. I am normally an introvert, but I did my best to join in. I convinced myself with the question, "How would I respond if a bumbling fool wanted to be involved?" I'd involve him, and I assumed everyone else would as well. Luckily, I was right. [Disirregardless of how that sounded, I don't consider myself to be a bumbling fool.]

There was nothing planned the first day because people were arriving at different times from all over the state. Volleyball was the mainstay of activity, and mainly stayed so until it was too dark to see the ball. Then inwards went we for Scrabble or Egyptian Ratscrew. I was ecstatic to discover that there are other people on the planet who also know that game by that name! I was completely exhausted by curfew time, but, surprisingly, the excessive uncomfortableness of the beds overcame sleep. They told us breakfast would start at 7 am and we groaned; that time couldn't come fast enough as I lied limply on the "bed" and watched my, uh, watch.

The "food" was typical cafeteria fare. Next up were group activities and mandatory fun, like where you have a nametag everyone but you can see and you have to figure out who you are, and the game where people grasp hands and try to untangle without letting go. There were speakers who talked about their professions in various scientific fields. I attended a hodgepodge on engineering, oceanography, genomics and proteomics, physics and space flight, and combined engineering and biology. This day I went for ultimate frisbee instead of volleyball, so I was much more tired and thus able to sleep almost six hours! Backtracking, I was pulled into a game of psychiatrist where I obviously didn't know the rules. Every time I asked a question that would totally reveal the problem, they all screamed "Psychiatrist!" and jumbled places. I eventually got it, with a little prodding. I won't tell the problem here, because we might use it in chat.

Third day. The mandatory fun this time was for each group to attempt to build the tallest freestanding structure out of a small supply of newspaper and tape. My group was the first done, and our structure stood 12 feet 10 inches. We thought we had it clinched, as no other groups' was above head height at the time. The winning group's was 17 and a half feet tall. Well, we didn't get last. (I watched the group who placed last. They frantically tried to support it as it kept crumpling. At the end, it stood about 3 feet tall. : ) More ultimate frisbee and an ice cream social without ice cream ensued.

The reason I enjoyed the trip so much was the calibre of the people there. I'd never before been with a large group of people who were all intelligent and fun. It was downright refreshing, especially considering I live in the town that recently had the highest per capita number of stoned people. Where else could I talk to people my age and hear things like, "I grow molds to gauge their effect on thrombosis," or, "I'm working on new applications for optical fiber," or, "My job is to help develop cooling processes and radiation shields at the nuclear power plant," or, "I'm helping develop an accurate computer speech synthesis engine," or, "I count shells." Yes, it was good. I'm very much looking forward to the ASE symposium at the end of the summer. Oh yeah, and I made some friends, too.

gabby