So this was the second day on the job. The first day was awesome however exhausting. There is so much to learn and so much to do. It's like improvising all the time. No plan. I'm just beginning... the pen's in my hand... ending unplanned. I've met SO many influential people so to speak... NETWORKING NETWORKING NETWORKING as I'm told is the credo of this place. Expectations abound. Lots of super motivated students who are very nice and easy to live and get along with. Hadley and Ash are my new friends here. They rock my socks off... The living is nice, i get my own room. I've done some decorating which is kind of coming along.
I met my mentor who is very nice and she took me out to lunch on the first day to the Olive Garden. My project is a little daunting-to create a database to store information on employees and the safety and risk tests they do on rockets. It is nothing like I expected. It's much cooler. I went to a presentation yesterday where we had many many many speakers who explained what the deal is. They said that there are no mistakes and it's no coincidence that I'm there. They said that 4/6 that are involved with NASA get asked back next year and that eventually they will have a job set up. There are various networking picnics and stuff. NASA's pretty sweet... lots of perks about being involved with the gov't. Wish I could give you all my new e-mail which ends in @nasa.gov but it's against policy.
Lots of safety safety safety. But the pace here is FAST and we're expected to keep running this marathon. Up at 5:30am and to work to bed as early as possible. When we can the CREW tries to have some fun... today we played a very competitive game of Ultimate. My co-workers at the office are also a ton of fun and spirit. They are just as into space stuff as I am.
One guy told me to go to this presentation for the Briefing of the Columbia disaster of 2003. Kind of like the engineer showing what went wrong and what steps were taken to fix it. There was some incredible footage from that shuttle mission and others as well as some pretty sweet-high definition photos from space and earth. It was a riveting presentation to say the least. I got his card and the guy who suggested that I go and he offered me a personal tour of their high speed-high impact chamber facility. He also gave me a poster of a shuttle mission (goin' in the room).
The opportunities are truly amazing here and I cannot express how BLESSED I am to be here. I feel every minute an attitude of gratitude (though it may sound like I'm all about myself in my blog, I'm really just trying to relate everything that goes on fro pretty much all of us here). If all I have to complain about is the food (which IS NOT good) I am an extremely blessed and lucky individual. I literally thank my (and EVERY) lucky star I see. It's nice to have those to count on when I miss my family and loved ones at home.
Faith and a WHOLE NEW OUTLOOK,
Olivia S. Armstrong
Intern, Risk &Project Assurance Division
NASA Glenn Research Center
No comments:
Post a Comment