On Being an Engineer

They say that most of the working class works a job that they don't enjoy, simply because they feel they must. Apparently, part of being a grown up and living in the 'real world' is having to cope with working whatever job you can finagle in order to make ends meet, and one is most likely to dislike their job.

Well, if that's the case, then I consider myself blessed. Because, seriously guys, I LOVE what I do. I wont even try to explain what it is I do, because I've attempted to do so in many occasions and apparently the message doesn't carry over very clearly (Sabrina and Dina, do you guys STILL not understand what I do? lol). But it's enough to say that this job is challenging, eye-opening, rewarding, adventurous, and never ever boring. I love it. At a time when it's a huge blessing to even have a job at all, I feel spoiled by the fact that I've been blessed with not only a job, but one that I thoroughly enjoy. I can ALMOST say that I have zero complaints when it comes to this job of mine (ALMOST, because let's face it... my paycheck could use a little numerical upgrade...) but I seriously count myself as very very fortunate and cannot stop praising God from whom all blessings flow :)

Pictures of yesterday's Helicopter Underwater Evacuation
and Water Survival Training Session

More pics of my life as an engineer to come :)

My Favorite Kiddos

Here are some pics of a leisurely Sunday afternoon I spent sitting on Eugenia's front yard playing with the kiddos. Please excuse the pictures of Junior, he NEVER stops moving so all I can get are some blurry action shots, most of which are of him lunging for the camera because he always wants to be the one taking the pictures. SMH.

Baby Tina is the cutey patootie in diapers. Remember her? She's the one that was born that day when I got my puppy... isn't she so big? Time flies, I tell ya.

Today is Junior's bday, he turns 4. I met him when he was 1. It' INSANE how fast he got so big.

I love these two :)

Soyo

Confined

So I happen to be in Soyo for a quick project. I've been working here this whole week. Today was the last day of the project, and I was set to give out the final reports and put together the final action plans and what not. Well, turns out, I had another thing coming. A pink thing, specifically. Pink eye.

I woke up with a swollen shut, painful, red, extremely mucous eye.

This is NOT fun.

I went to my first morning meeting, followed by the clinic, and now I've been ordered by the Doctor to stay locked up in my room for the next 2 days. Ugh. Turns out, it's going around here at the base, yet noone bothered to warn me til after I got it. Thanks a lot people!

Well it's actually not too bad to have a forced vacation. Other than the annoying eye, it's kinda nice to chill out and work from bed :)

Funnnn in the Sunnnnnn!

My First Masterpiece

Ok not even close to a masterpiece but here is the fruit of my labor! I got to perform my first song last Sunday. I'm enjoying this songwriting thing :)

I needs to buy me a guitar so I can be more legit, lol.

Elisa and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Week

This week was quite taxing.

At the expense of sounding like a whiny-butt, all of the following events took place in a measly 7-day period:

-The kitchen sink is clogged. Uber annoying.

-A tube running through the wall of my room busted, flooding my bedroom more than once.

-There was some problem with the electricity at my place, causing some voltage oscillation that caused it to go too high and blow out all my light bulbs. At the same time.

-Said electrical problems caused me to disconnect my fridge because I was afraid that it would burn out. All my food is now rotten. It was packed full too, since I had just done my grocery shopping for the month.

-Threats of an anti-government protest with potential turn for outright violence and vandalism loomed near the city center... a few blocks from where I live. This caused me to stay sequestered away at the Tadeus until things calmed down.

-I had a big event going on at work that kept me up late a couple of nights this week preparing reports. Last night (while still at the Tadeus'), Chinha's baby was crawling around nearby where I was working. He somehow got tangled up in my modem cable, causing my computer to freeze up, which in turn caused me to shut everything down, which in turn caused me to lose a couple of hours worth of work.

-This afternoon, at the end of the event, I had a conference call scheduled with some of the global head honchos. Well, the network refused to cooperate and I was never able to log in to the conference call. Had to reschedule. Very frustrating.

-Traffic was a major pain in the hiney today. More so than usual.

-I finally made it to the Tadeus' (STILL staying there, lol, ya me emocione...). I exhaustedly sauntered up the driveway and started chatting with the guard. Well the guard dog, a huge German Shepherd, decided he wanted to rip some flesh off of me or something because he charged at me and was able to snip away a nice little itty-bitty chunk off my back (I had to act fast to arch my back away from him so he couldn't get as much flesh as he was trying to...). AND he ripped my awesome green tshirt. Not cool.

Pics taken after I got back from the clinic where they disinfected me and gave me an anti-rabies shot...

But alas... the week is now over. Sunset is here (yay for Sabbath!!!) and I get to hang out with the kiddos at the Tadeus' home which never fail to bring some sunshine into my day! :D