Sick.

The next week I was terribly sick. I was dragging myself to my classes and stiffling coughing fits.

I showed up early to the welding shop, leaving all of my gear in the trunk of my car. Teach looked at me and said "You're sick." I nodded and he told me to go home. He said that breathing in the dirt and fumes wasn't going to help me get better, and that since I was ahead of everyone, missing a class wouldn't be detrimental.

I went home, crawled into bed and dreamt of burning metal.

My welding class was only one day a week. But later in the week, the advanced students had a class that ran at the same time. We were told that we were welcome to come in on that day and catch up. I was feeling guilty about missing class that week, so I went in to do a few assignments and get ahead again. I was still pretty sick, but feeling much, much better than I had felt when Teach told me to go home.

I saw a lot of faces that I had never seen before. A lot of people looked at me questioningly.

One guy greeted me with a happy hello, and as I was pulling my hat out of my tool bag he asked if I had a do-rag. I pulled out a bandana quickly and said "I sure do!" I pinned my bangs back, a la Rosie, and tied the bandana around my hair, then slipped on my ballcap backwards. Two minutes from girly-girl to tomboy.

Teach grabbed a ratty piece of scrap and told me to weld it to my pad for a handle. This was my first time welding two pieces of metal together. I had a hard time keeping the spark going, but I made it about three quarters of the way across my new handle then took it to him. "You aren't grading me on this are you?" I asked. It looked terrible and I held it behind my back until he told me no.

He then showed me how to use the chop saw, which was brand new, and I cut the ends off of my pad, to look for deposits inside. I had a blast using the saw. Teach leans in and goes "Are the sparks bothering you?" I shook my head. Hell, it looked like christmas, with all those yellow sparks flying around. I loved it!

He noted that there were very few deposits in my pad, and told me to take it out to the wirewheel, clean it up and soften the edges. I loved grinding that thing down. I was starting to think that I didn't want to be a welder after all, I wanted to be a cutter and a grinder.

There is only one wirewheel in the shop, and occasionally I would look back and see someone waiting for me to finish. So I would step aside and let them have a turn. Some looked angry or annoyed at me. I stood back, waited for them to finish then went back at it. I had a lot to do, this was my first time using a wirewheel so I wasn't by any means adept, and the pad was damn rough and really dirty! But eventually I got sick of the evil eyes and decided to go home.

One of the evil eyes was from Camaro, the guy who had given me my tour of the shop last semester when I came in to talk with Teach. He had been so nice then and now he looked so annoyed that I was there. I didn't get it.

I packed up my tools, said goodnight to Teach and headed home.