Eighty-Fifth Entry

It has indeed been a while since I posted anything in my blog. I dont blame you all for not reading. But, as you have probably heard, I am rearry busy with work and school.

Work
Work has been especially busy this week. I made the final push on my overlay projects(Contract 2), and it still wasn't enough. Probably just another half of a day on Monday and it will be done.

We had a bid opening on Wednesday for Contract 1. This particular contract was a giant headache for everyone in the Design division. It consists of 11 projects. One of which was mine, Avenue 224, or as I like to call it, "My Quarter Million, Quarter Mile." The opening went well; five contractors submitted bids. Our "Engineer's Estimate" came in right where we wanted it to, about one third lower from the highest bid.

But, apart from the actual work we do, something very extremely interesting happened on Tuesday.
The Story:
Bill, a 55-ish engineer, is sitting at his desk getting things ready for Wednesdays bid opening. It is his responsibility to get these things done because he was the Project Engineer on Contract 1. Phil, Bill's supervisor(also mine), went to check up on Bill and tell him what he wanted for the Bid Opening. Background: For the longest time, those two absolutely hate each other. I often find myself on the listening end of one of Bill's vents about Phil. While Bill is very vocal about his dislike of Phil, Phil just doesn't get into it. Phil is a much calmer(dare I say...professional!?) person than Bill is. I really like them both, so choose not to take sides. Phil goes into Bill's cube and starts to tell him that he needs to be present for the bid opening and write down the bids as they come in(which, by the way, is the way it is done all over the world). Bill goes on the offensive and tells Phil that he does not have to go to the bid opening because Marcia said he didn't. Phil (calmly)"Yes you are." Bill (louder)"No I'm not." Phil (still calmly)"Yes you are." Bill (even louder)"No I'm not. Marcia said I didn't have to! Let's get her in here!" Phil (remarkably, still calmly)"We don't need her in here. You need to go to the bid opening." Bill (yelling)"Get her in here!! Get her in here!!"
Now, for those of you who work or have worked in offices with rows and rows of cubes full of people quietly working it is easy to understand how unsettling hearing something like this is. Our office is normally very quiet, except when I go into Janes office(she makes me laugh), so this unusual yelling was shocking. And it wasn't polite yelling like your parents did to you in a store. Everyone on our end of the building on our floor heard it. It was definately an odd way to start the work week. Since then, they haven't so much as looked at one another.

Now, no offense to Phil or Bill, but their relationship is that of a Jock and Nerd. Bill is a jock. Phil is a nerd. Bill is an atypical engineer. Phil is a stereotypical engineer. It was bound to happen someday.

At least we have a new topic to discuss at breaktime.

School

School is going great. I actually ditched my first class of the semester this week cuz I wanted to work late on Wednesday. Yeah, Spanish had to take a backseat to Bid Results and cramming for Psych.

Schedule of classes:

Spanish 1 - MW 5-7
Cinema 32 - M 7-10
Portuguese 1 - TR 7-9
Psychology 1 - W 7-10
Music 20 - R 5-7

I really like all my classes. Here is a little on all the classes I am taking at COS(College of the Sequoias).

Spanish 1: The teacher is white. Even I can tell his accent when he speaks Spanish. But he also teaches at one of the high schools in Visalia. And he is a good teacher. The material so far (numbers, alphabet, greetings) is basic and easy.
I got a B on the first test. The tests are stupid though. Most of the questions are "Choose the one that does not fit with the rest." 6 of the questions of this type were just lists of numbers. Now, anyone who has at least an 8th grade education can come up with any reason for why any of them dont fit. Apparantly the teacher didn't pass the eighth grade. I got like 3 wrong out of those. He does give us an opportunity to challenge his answers, but only in writing. I should just tell him I am an engineer and he'd back off.

Cinema 32: All we do in this class is watch movies in the first Stadium Seating theater in the state. Its that old. So's the teacher and all the movies we've seen so far.
The prof gives us a questionnaire at the beginning of class to fill out as we watch the movie. So we watch the movie(last week was "The Adventures of Robin Hood") and fill out the answers to the questions. There's a catch...we have to fill up all the white space on both sides of the sheet. Usually there are 9 or 10 questions per night. It really takes a lot to write(in ink...or else) 9-10 questions on two sides of a paper in a reasonable amount of time. I usually stay after for like 30 minutes filling the white space with mindless drivel that somewhat has something to do with the question. No tests!!

Portuguese 1: This class is fun. It's the funnest foreign language class I have ever taken. I hate getting up in front of class and swatting a fly swatter at the projection screen, but I am getting used to it. The prof makes the class a lot of fun with activities like the fly swatter one. We've played bingo too.
This teacher was actually born in the Azores one village over from my Dad's. Pretty cool.
He also teaches at Tulare Union HS in Tulare. My cousin Igo is in his class. One day the teacher asked me if Rodrigo was my cousin. I said yes. Oh, lord I thought. But he didn't drag it out or anything. Last night he asked me who my father was. It was like the twilight zone or something.
Last night we also had a test which I absolutely killed.

Psychology 1: I love this class, I love this class, I love this class. We took a test on Wednesday and I got a 95% on 2.5 hours of loose studying. The test was really easy.
The prof is an actual psychologist and has a practice somewhere in Visalia. The class is fun because the prof is really fun. He is extremely go with the flow and his lectures sometimes turn into a class discussion where it seems like the discussion is really a stream of our collective consciousness. It is really cool.
He is a good teacher because he presents the material very well and in a way that anyone could understand. Not that he dumbs it down or anything, but the way he explains things is good.

Music 20: Beginning Piano is a really fun class. The teacher told us at the beginning that by the end of the semester we would be playing like someone who had private lessons for three years. Although I would love to believe that, I just don't think it is possible.
This teacher is just a spaz and a half. She is just all over the class. Full of energy. And she has the funniest laugh. I'll imitate it for y'all next time i go home.
Right now in class we are starting to learn how to read notes. This class is pretty fast paced without seeming so. Its weird. We are all picking it up pretty fast. We've already learned all the five finger patterns, major chords, the Key Circle thingy, and all the theory behind it. I really like this class.

So that is it. Five classes in four days. Its fun. It keeps me really busy. I have a test in Portuguese next week.

And on the seventh day, he rested.