Friday, December 10, 2010

It's a Man's World and I Intend to Crash It! (part 1)

In my younger days,(early 20s) construction meant sweaty, tanned men in hard hats looking delicious and sexy on the side of the road playing in asphalt. There was one guy on the way to East lansing I saw everyday who could hold a flag. mmm hmm..damn could he hold that flag....but I digress.


I was in the Interior Design program at Michigan State, (2 years of my life wasted that I'll never get back) and hating it. The weeks without sleep, bitchy females and stressing over the endless projects became too much and the finale was me in the shower, in our dorm, holding a huge chunk of my hair that had fallen out. I was done. The problem was, I had absolutely NO idea what I wanted to do. When I started at State, it was the height of the "Trading Spaces" craze. everyone wanted to be an interior designer. The problem was, I really didn't. I went to the classes, maintained my 3.5 but I was incredibly unhappy.

One day on the way back from Class in the Chem building, I stopped to watch the ground breaking of the new addition to the Spartan Stadium. I was fascinated. I always loved to watch construction and things being built. Most girls played with barbies (as well as I) but I also liked lincoln logs. Correction: OMG! I loved the lincoln logs. My brother and I would build cities, barns for my horses and his cars for hours. I'm sure my parents hated it since their feet bear the scars of all the logs they stepped on over the years. As I stood there this day, however, I had never really thought of it as a possible career choice.

Sitting in the dorm that night, with Pizza House pizza, which if you have never had Pizza House pizza and live in the vicinity of Lansing, you are a nazi communist. That goes double if you never had Deluca's. Again, I digress. I was flipping through the college catalog trying to figure out what I wanted to transfer to. Astrology? (No) Astronomy? No. Biology? No. Building construction Management ........hmmmm...and that's how it started.

I loved the change and I finally enjoyed going to class. (except Contracts. I hate that effing class still). Let me just say that any degree that has a 4 women to 110 guy ratio is great. I didn't have to pay for a single drink the entire time I was in the BCM major. I met 2 of my best friends in those classes, one while we tried desperately not to fail our Quantity Take off tests. The other, during a period of little sleep and lots of fun times, most notably, the night of the bar crawl and being out until 4 am when I had training at Linens N Things at 8:00am. I had to watch training videos ALL day. That was the longest day of my life. I met some great guys who I miss terribly but love to see how well they all are doing. (It's time for a "RamRod Construction" reunion, guys) Life was great especially when I got the haunted apartment in Lansing (but that story is another blog)

I lucked out and got a good job offer in Washington DC. I had to find an apartment quickly so together my hetero life partner and I took a road trip. All I'm going to say is wrong way on the HOV and dead center of Alexandria at 5:00 PM. Then, got back, hastily packed up and away I went with my Basset Hound in tow. I was now a DC metro resident.


To Be Continued




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