The pointless doctor's visit

I've had a sore throat and a painful cough for a few days, a runny nose and sometimes a headache as well. I've had it for about 4 days and today I decided to leave school a little early and go to the doctor just to be on the safe side. Unfortunately I got there just before the doctor was about to take his lunch. I waited 2 hours! In this time I heard the woman behind the desk be yelled at for not having the H1N1 vacine available and not knowing when they would have it. I heard her be yelled at for giving a wait time that was shorter than she predicted. I heard her yell at people who were coughing and not wearing a face mask. It was the most eventful doctor's office wait I have ever had to sit through. The hysteria of some of the people in that office was amazing to me. "Well I have diabetis. I need the vacine!" "We won't know until Monday next week. Please *call* at that time." "Do you know anywhere else that is giving the vacine?" "No." "Well, I hope I don't get the flu in the next week!"
The woman behind the next was not very nice, but I don't think I would be either if I had her job.
After all that waiting the doctor confirmed my original thought - I have the common cold. I waited 2 hours to learn that I have the common cold. Woo hoo!

I had a good week!

For the first time in several weeks I finished off my school week feeling good about school and myself. I finished the projects that I had fallen behind on and was proud of myself. They weren't perfect, but they looked reasonably like everyone else's projects. By Friday I had nothing left to do. Our instructor went to a conference in the states and left us with someone who is probably going to retire this year and didn't bother giving us real lessons. He did give us one lesson this week having to do with circles and layout which I found very valuable! I saw flowers. What you do is you mark a line with your straight edge (a ruler, whatever). From that line you scribe your first circle. From that circle you can mark as many other circles to pass through that circle to make whatever you like and all of it can be perfectly symetrical. I used that lesson to make flowers. I scribed them in some scrap metal, cut them out with the plasma torch and took them to the belt sander. It was at that point that I realized the importance of a steady hand in this kind of work. There was a lot of slag build up on the bottom of one of my flowers and it was very hard and wouldn't sand off easily. This, however, didn't upset me the way it might have if my regular instructor had been there this week. His opinion means a lot to me and he doesn't give compliments. Anything he does say is usually criticism. If he says nothing about my projects or my work, I take that as a good sign.
Coming back to the positivity. I left there on Friday feeling like I had enjoyed my week and was excited about working with metal again.

Thinking about the near future

I'm really not doing very well in my program. I have failed a lot of tests and my work in the shop is very weak. A lot of people are telling me that I'm being to hard on myself and it's too soon to say, but my instructor is the final say on weather I pass or fail this course and he has been pretty closed lipped about how he feels about it. I am feeling very discouraged and all of the creativity is drained right out of me. The last thing I want to do these days is go down to the shop. All the apprentice classes are down there and take use of the welding machines for the full 6 hours of the school day. But even if a welder was available, I can't think of something I would like to make. The first thought that comes to my mind is "it would be a waste of good metal and I would just wreck anything I make." I start to think about what I will do if I fail... will I take it again? Do I WANT to take it again? Will I try to look for work anyway? Who would hire me if I fail? I wonder if I could find work in the city that my sister lives in as a failed first year steel fabricator?What if I pass? Will I move out once I find a job? Will I still travel? I have the funds set aside. That was the original plan when I started the course. But now things are different and I don't know if going away right after graduation is such a great idea. I might want to start working with the little knowledge I will take away from this course.
When I was little (maybe 3 or 4), my Mom took me ice skating for the first time. I thought that I would just go out on the ice and look like the figure skaters on tv right away. I stuck my leg out behind me and fell down on my butt. I gave up then and there. I am older now and have a very little bit of wisdom, but I am still like that. I think that I should be able to go out into a steel fab shop and be perfect right away. And if I'm not, I don't feel like doing it at all. I'm going to finish, but I'm not sure that it's what I want to do anymore. I want out of this funk and I don't want to be at square one again! There's a guy in my class who is 26 and he's had 6 false starts on a career. He has a lot of debt and he is kind of old looking and cranky for his age. I don't want that to be me.