Another Special Day

I graduated from Northland Pioneer College on Saturday, May 19, 2012 with my Associates of Applied Science in Welding. Honestly, it wasn't that exciting at all. I had already decided to receive my degree within the two years of being apart of Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of technology (NAVIT) Welding and I did. I wasn't shocked or excited, just stressed. Stressed about being late for the graduation, getting ready on time, making sure everyone has their ticket to get into the graduation, and most importantly, making sure I had enough tickets for everyone that showed up.

A month ago, before my graduation when I first received my tickets, I had a list of everyone I wanted to be there and I was set. I had notified everyone, but as we all know things don't always go as planned.So my best friend and sister couldn't make it because of work, which was okay due to I ended up receiving two tickets less than I expected. But the day of graduation, one of my aunts brought her friend and my uncle and his family were coming and I just didn't have enough tickets for everyone and I didn't really want to have to decide who could show up and who couldn't. So somehow, I don't know how, they all got in which was a great thing. The down side was the wait. I am not a big fan of waiting and being patience, especially when I have no choice but to wait.

I had to check-in, dressed and ready to graduate. We had to check-in two hours before the actual graduation started. So I was going in and out of the "check-in" location and talking with the other graduating NAVIT welders from both St. Johns and Snowflake, I was the only NAVIT student welder from Holbrook graduating. It wasn't so bad because I knew them a little bit because we had all competed against one another in both the regional and state welding Skills USA competition this year. The two hours seemed to have taken much longer and the room slowly began to fill up more and more, until finally I heard, "NPC Graduates of 2012, may I have your attention please." We all looked towards the center of the room, then instructed to line up according to our degrees, so we did. And waited some more.

Finally, it was "time", time to walk down the aisle to be seated, time to search for our family and friends in the crowd, and time to do some more waiting. We sat and listened to the welcome address in five different languages, the choir sing, the keynote speaker speak, the outstanding students speak, the college hand out different awards to certain students, then finally the heading out and receiving of our diplomas.

It wasn't until I handed them my name card and standing on stage within a few feet of receiving my diploma I realized I finally did it. I placed sixth out of about fifty high school welders at the Skills USA competition. I placed second in the state of Arizona on our Career and Technical Education (CTE) exam for welding that all seniors take that participated in any CTE program. And finally, the fact that I am about to receive my degree in welding.

Even after realizing my accomplishments with welding, it still felt like nothing. After the day was over with, I wondered, "When will it mean something besides nothing?" I can't answer right now but I can not wait to find out. For now, it'll be seating in my room until the day I need it. I feel relieve today but I still have one more graduation this Friday from my high school and expecting it to have a much bigger and more meaningful impact on me. After spending four years with wonderful classmates and friends along with amazing teachers helping me along the way, Friday, please come fast!

10 Things I Love

These are just a few things that I look forward to everyday or weekly because it's what I love, each one has their own special memory or memories engraved in my mind. I have briefly explained each one and will further more define why I love each one until I'm done.

1. Pizza Hut: Pepperoni pizza & hot wings with Dr. Pepper. It's become something I love because pizza parties hold so many memories for me. From junior high throughout high school, my friends and I gathering money together for pizza and hot wings are the best! 
2. Half & Half's: Also known as: Arnold Palmer. It's a type of drink half green tea and half lemonade, my older cousin sister bought me one one day and I haven't stop buying them since. 
3. Brother's: I have so many  besides Brent and Nate (my actual brothers), who I claim as my brothers. They're there for me and I can talk to them about anything and everything. I cry with them, laugh with them, tease with them, pretty much everything and sometimes my mom "adopts" them as her son too.
4. Mother: My mommy, I love her. She's been with me through everything and I've been there for her. Yeah, we have our disagreements but she's always going to be my mom and stand by me through the thick and thin.
5. Mistakes: I enjoy my mistakes in life, in relationships, in school, in everything because I know I'm not perfect but it's nice to know where I messed up and learn from it and fix the mistake.
6. Winter: I enjoy the cold. I don't have snowball fights or go skiing, snowboarding, or sledding I just enjoy the cold, chilly weather that winter has to offer.
7. Amazing Friends: My friends are the people I'm around when I just want to by myself. I'm the type of person that tries to keep things to myself but my amazing friends are those I can not hide from.
8. Staying Home: Occasionally, I like traveling but nothing beats laying in my bed or the couch alone watching TV, cleaning, or playing video games.
9. Visiting the Dentist: Ever since I was small every year I looked forward to visiting the dentist. My favorite part is having my teeth cleaned and when I had braces, my visits were monthly and I enjoyed it.
10. Welding: Welding is amazing and plan to be doing it as long as I can. There's so much you can learn from it and make very good money. I can't wait to be making money doing what I really enjoy doing. 

Another Competition

 Today is the day I leave for Cottonwood, Arizona, for the SkillsUSA Regional Welding competition at Mingus High School. So far, I’ve only prepared my tool box and resume, I have not yet packed at all but eventually I will. Throughout the week at the welding shop, we were given pieces of metals and a blueprint that we to assemble according to the blue print within 30 minutes. 30 minutes sounds like a lot of time but when you have to quickly glance at the blue print, place the right piece of metal where it belongs, and correctly weld where and how the blue print says, the 30 minutes feel like 5. As we did our projects there has been little mistakes that would have cost me lots of points in the competition, 50 percent of our points come from our assembly and the other 50 percent come from how well are welds are. Inside the welding competition, we weld in three main processes in welding: mig, tig, and stick, along with welding we cut the metal in oxy-fuel and plasma, as well as a mock interview, and written tests that are related to welding in between everyone of these categories. We receive points in everything we do and in the end whoever has the most points wins.

Although this is just the regional competition, between the three NAVIT (vocational institute program) welding shops: Holbrook, St. Johns, and Show Low, to qualify for state we have to finish as one of the top six out of the three shops. There’s normally about 80 welders that compete in the regional that are just from the northern part of Arizona, but at state it’s everyone in Arizona. Last year I was fortunate enough to place 11^th in the entire regional competition and advance to state because I place 4^th inside the NAVIT shops. I plan to do my best at Saturday’s competition. It starts at 6am and does not end until 3pm, so I know already it’s going to be a long day.

I enjoy competing with welding, for me; it’s like putting two of my favorite things together. Even though I probably would have lost if my projects from this week were for this competition, I see it as I have already made mistakes and learned from them. Right now I’m nervous about welding, but I’m more confident than I was last year and looking forward to Saturday. I’m just doing what I love, surrounded by people who share the same interest in welding as me. I will do by best in this competition and most importantly have fun welding and hope it’s good enough to qualify for state in March.

Beginning to Weld

For my first blog it was quite hard to decide what to "blog" about and from my friends I was given outrageous ideas that I had to clarify had to be "school appropriate." Until one finally suggested to blog about something I love, without a second more, I thought of welding. But first I began thinking of how I always dreamed of being a doctor or surgeon or somewhere in the medical field before welding, so here's how it happened... 

It originally started with a program at my high school known as Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of Technology (NAVIT), that consisted of Welding, Health Related Occupation (HRO), and a few others. HRO was that program I told my mom and others that I was doing, but on the day of testing I marked welding. Why? I still don't have a clear answer but I'm very glad I did though that weekend I told my mom and she wasn't so happy about it. After telling her I visited my older cousin brother, Jerrin, who is an ironworker and I told him what I did and he just laughed about me. Minutes later I asked what is welding?  He looked at me and responded let me show you. He handed me a Carhartt long sleeved button up shirt that already had burns up the sleeves, a welding cap to cover my hair, and putting on what I now know is called arm sleeves on my arms then a welding hood and gloves. As he was suiting me up, his older and younger brother, Everett and Jaylin, were setting up their Miller Bobcat Welder (a welding machine) on the side of me. At that point I was beginning to become more and more nervous and excited at the same time, I stood and watched as the three of them put their jackets, hoods, and gloves faster than I did of course. When they were done Jerrin told me to sit beside him and watch the little puddle. Everett pushed my hood down and we all gathered around Jerrin. "COVER!" was the last thing I heard, everything went silent when the bright light was the only thing I saw, at that moment I felt like a little kid again with a smile so big I couldn't take my eyes off that spark! Then Jerrin started talking about the puddle and keeping it the same size and how you have to push and pull the rod (stick used for welding) to keep the puddle steady and flowing evenly. After he completed a stringer (a welded line), he began telling me about how there are different ways of welding, different metal, different rods, different positions of welding, so many different things about welding and I didn't even understand any of it but it interested me even more!

The beginning of my junior year in high school was when I began taking welding classes with the NAVIT program. The first day of class I learned that I would be receiving college credit in welding by passing tests and doing different welding projects as a grade. I had NAVIT in the mornings then high school in the afternoon and I loved it a lot because I only had four classes at the high school. I remember my first welding assignment, two pads (welds overlapping one another to increase the thickness of the metal) with 6010 and 7018 (welding rods), I was so scared thinking that I would mess up or not be able to weld at all and with all these thoughts going through my mind I recall Jerrin telling me, "every welder sees the same puddle, no matter if you're a beginner or you've been welding all your life that puddle will remain the same." After feeling confident enough I did my first weld, then again, and again and again until I got it right.

I looked forward to welding everyday. Being able to welding is what I love doing, I do not regret changing my dream of becoming a doctor but looking forward to underwater welding as my ultimate dream now. So it's okay to change your dreams and chase new ones, or in a cliche "always expect, the unexpected."