Rosie The Riveter

So, when Jerad begged me to take welding with him, I was pretty apprehensive. Welding? Me??? Last Saturday was our 2nd welding lab. I was already in a bad mood cause we had a welding exam right before and I know I missed a few of the questions. Then we had our shop/lab. We had two projects to complete in 4 hours.

The first HOUR AND A HALF of the shop was terrible. I couldn't get any of my welds right and I was just really inconsistent. I told Jerad that I wanted to quit and between working, babysitting, and this saturday welding class I had no time to study for my core classes that I, you know, need to graduate. He told me I should talk to the teacher first.

It turns out that because I am such a shortie, the welding booths are too tall for me so it makes everything really awkward. And the electrode holder I was using was apparently the heaviest one in the class.

So, once the teacher set me up my own special SHORT bench to weld on and found me a light electrode holder everything went great! I actually weld better than most of the guys in the class. Haha who knew?

I am now the only girl; left in the class. we started with four and they have dropped like flies. So now I feel this sort of pressure to show that yes, females can weld too. I doubt I'll be building any trailers soon but at least I am holding my own.