Senior Design...um...Senior Design

It's only 3 days into class, and senior design is well underway. Our group had a project all settled (or at least we believed), until our contact people failed to contact us. Soo trying to get information about a project from people who won't talk to you is difficult, and I casually mentioned that at work this past Friday to one of my co-workers via email. Did I mention that I worked with the greatest people ever at GE this summer?? He took what I said, told another person I had worked with this summer, and he is now looking into a project for us to do in the wind turbine division. How awesome is that? I didn't even ask for any help from them, honestly, and I have no idea what we would be doing if it wasn't for these amazing people.

Hopefully the project will be a doable one. And exciting. I like wind turbines.

We also accumulated another senior design group member, so there will be 5 of us total. The last person is a co-op at GE from University Park, and is only taking the first semester of the course. But this means we have one extra person to help out first semester!! AND he will have the constant ability to get into the GE plant unplanned (whereas the rest of us will have to make appointments in order to visit) and talk with the people who are sponsoring our project on a regular basis. The down side is losing him when the real crunch time comes, but it will work out for the better.

We are the only group of 5.

While I am still struggling with getting the details of this project figured out, and still not quite into the idea of being back at school, God has given me so much to be thankful for :-)

Corinthians

I needed this:

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

-1Corinthians 15:58

:-)

Tomorrow...

Classes start tomorrow, and I am already incredibly stressed out about it. If next semester is anything like the last, then it will be crazy busy. And I already need a break...

This past week was incredibly busy and not fun for a lot of reasons, most of which revolved around having to tell the people at GE that I couldn't stay for the semester...over and over again. I was in tears most of the times I had to say no, luckily for me most of those conversations took place via email, sametime (think AIM via GE intranet), or phone. The small amounts of in-person talking about it was me shielding myself from feeling any type of emotion so I didn't cry in front of my co-workers, which would have been not fun. I don't even know why I have been so emotional about this ... maybe I'm just tired in general and need a break and would have been emotional this week anyway.

Maybe its because I'm about to start my last year at school, and am totally unsure of what I will be doing once I graduate in 9 months. Maybe it's because I feel like I'm letting everyone down. Maybe it's because I dislike change in general, and leaving GE feels so permanent (they make you hand in your iD badge, so that you can't even get into the plant ever again). I worked 40 hours in 4 days my last week. It was intense.

I hate saying goodbye.

Sorry if none of that made sense. Class starts tomorrow, and I don't want them to.

Rejection...

...It's not fun. I got a phone call today telling me that I didn't get the job for the Edison Program that I interviewed for last week.

Although I was struggling with this job and the possibility of foregoing my teaching dreams for awhile in order to work at GE for a few years, I still really wanted to get the job. How sweet of an opportunity is it to have a job offer before starting my senior year?? And being able to work in an intensely focused engineering position and switch jobs every 6 months to see what it is I'd like? Awesome. Because I honestly have no idea...the teaching thing is just something that came to me one day out of nowhere and I've been running with it because I had no other clues what there was to do.

It was a good interviewing experience, nonetheless. The only two jobs I have intensely interviewed for (Camp Notre Dame and Edison) I have been rejected from, whereas the quickie phone interview jobs I've gotten. Apparently I'm bad at interviewing in person, especially when there are 4 or more people interviewing me. Oh wells. Practice makes perfect, I guess, and now I've had a few more practices than most other people my age. The next round of interviews that comes around, I am SO going to kick its butt!

Also funny to note, is that the only two jobs I have REALLY wanted I have been rejected from, and I've gotten offered every single other job I've applied for (and didn't really want). I didn't want to work at GE as an intern, I just applied because my mom made me and Camp Notre Dame rejected me. And it turned out wonderfully :-). Although I was incredibly skeptical going in...

So no GE job next year = grad school = no money = no car next year. Perfect :-).

I just got a text from a friend I worked with this summer that says "God knows what's best." Funny, I don't even know if he's a Christian and really believes that, or if he was just catering to what he knows to be my beliefs. But it's so so true :-). I will end up where I am meant to be, because I don't make the rules.

Standing up?

I had a really uncomfortable conversation with my boss on Friday. All summer long, I have believed that I wasn't allowed to stay working at GE during the school year, mostly because I didn't receive information about it at all (last summer I did), and the co-ops that got laid off for the summer weren't even guaranteed their jobs in the fall. It wouldn't be fair for me to keep my job, right?

I learned on Thursday night from Kerry that I was, in fact, allowed to stay. My department shows an intense need for me (they are really hurting right now with more work and less people to do it), and they all have talked to her about the possibility of keeping me. Apparently it was decided amongst HR that I was, in fact, allowed to stay during the fall...if I chose to do so.

It would have been so much easier if they just wouldn't let me come back.

In order to work during the school year, I am required to work 12 hours. Adding in the driving to and from work time (counting snow in the winter) and getting ready for work (can't go to work in my pj's) and showering after work (locomotives are dirty), that's probably at least 15 hours out of my week dedicated to GE. Between being vice president of a brand new organization on campus, prayer coordinator for an organization that needs to do some serious butt-kicking to stay alive next semester, and 18 credits along with senior design, I don't have the time to dedicate to this job right now. It would simply be semester suicide.

So I told my boss that, and he seemed disappointed in me. I guess there's nothing else I can do, short of making my boss somehow believe that this truly IS the right decision for me right now. I do love my job, and I am very sad to go, but I can't do this in the midst of a semester that is promising to be just as crazy as the last. He said things to me like, "I've seen students do it," and, "You could even come in on Saturdays to get the work done," and the look in his eyes was one of disappointment. I'm not used to this, I strive to make people happy all the time. I think that's part of my busy-ness problem... I can't say no... and when I try I somehow end up feeling bad and getting sucked back in because it's better for the overall group. And then other people say no and somehow get out, leaving me with more work and more frustration.

This one time I said no, I finally stood up for myself, and it was awkward, and it still kind of hurts me inside. I know that they truly need the extra help, but I simply can't give it to them. I will be very sad when I hand in my GE badge and walk out the doors of building 9 for the last time (hopefully not forever, but for at least a year). The people I work with are absolutely WONDERFUL, and the lessons I've learned this summer have been invaluable. I will be sad the day I won't be able to climb up on that locomotive and sit in that incredibly comfy chair and run that 6000 horsepower engine.

The chooch will always hold a special place in my heart <3

I have an interview...

TOMORROW! Actually, I have 4. For the same job. Ridiculous. And all 4 of them have to like me in order to get it...

This shall be a good experience, no matter what the outcome. We'll see.