Date: Thursday July 31st, 2003
Just a quick entry before bed tonight. Things have been busy at work lately, as we've been working on a presentation for my boss to give so that he can get us some more funding. That's working in the educational system for you.
Things have generally been a lot nicer at work this year. I am a "Research Specialist" in the Mechanical Engineering department. My boss does research into nondestructive ultrasonic testing, which means looking for cracks and flaws inside bits of metal without having to cut them up. Interestingly enough, I originally got the job towards the end of my second year in college because they were looking for someone to update their data acquisition software. That took about three months, and after that my boss decided that I was so cool, he'd keep me on for a while. Now I've been working there for over three years and I'm actually the senior person now. People move in and out of these sorts of jobs a lot as they come in to school and move on to other things. Last year there was a post doc working here, and before there were several masters' students and they all did most of the actual experiments and stuff while I just worked on simulations and other incidental things. Now that they are all gone, I am doing most of that stuff and it's nice to have a bit more variety in what I'm doing. Plus it's interesting stuff to be learning about. Things have also been better this year because, after a long stint of being the only employee in the office, there are now two other guys working in there with me. After the post doc left, I was getting so sick of going in there to the ugly cold little cinder-box room by myself to type away on the computer all day long. I'm not a particularly social person and it's not like I like to sit around chatting all day, (they actually chat more than I usually care for) but it's nice to have some other people around too. I'm also very glad to have the job because when I graduated last year, I simply could not find a job in my own area. We had been planning on moving to St. Louis or Kansas City so that I could get a job, but that plan kind of fizzled out when I couldn't find a job and I got pregnant and we bought a house. Luckily my boss seems completely willing to keep me on for as long as I want, so long as he's got the money available, and that sort of job security is nice. Certainly there's always the possibility that his funding sources could dry up, but at least I know he wants to keep me on. Of course I'm not completely sure what I'm going to do with what I'm learning, but it at least seems that it could end up being an easy way to get a masters, since I could use some of the signal processing stuff I'm doing to write a thesis on. All in all, I'm pretty lucky on the job front. Lately the cats have been dragging in cicadas every night. Luckily I haven't stepped on one yet. At least they aren't as gross as ticks. But really, nothing is. The dogs really enjoy the cicadas. Bramble had a fun evening last night batting one around with her paw and barking at it when it started to buzz. The rest of us had a fun evening watching her. Puppies are so entertaining.
