This is obviously not the one Nuclear Mom saw outside her UF classroom

UF did not prepare me for everything. It didn’t prepare me for the snowy conditions in which I would eventually live. I did encounter freezing temperatures at UF. I remember one day there was a squirrel frozen to death on a tree just outside my Modern Physics classroom window – I might not have been paying attention during class that day, I hope I didn’t miss anything of quantum importance! (That really nerdy joke made my husband laugh pretty hard. Wow! The things you learn about your spouse while writing a blog!)

UF also did not prepare me for the evaluations I would be subjected to during my interviews for a job as a Nuclear Engineer. As I am writing this, I am beginning to wonder if others were actually subjected to similar evaluations? Should I be admitting that I was evaluated. They told me it was a perfectly normal part of the interview process. Was there something particular about me that required the evaluations (maybe I’m just getting a little paranoid)? What if someone is reading this and knows that they only use those evaluations for ‘special’ candidates? (Great, now I’m obviously delusional because I think someone might be reading this.)

When interviewing for a position as a Nuclear Engineer, I was subjected to multiple tests to determine my fitness for duty. These tests are advertised as being used to identify suitable candidates for high risk public safety positions such as nuclear power plant workers (although I think they are better used to identify Girl Scout leaders best suited for making large amounts of gelatin dessert!) The tests were psychological diagnostic exams (and I know that wasn’t in any course description I had at UF, maybe they covered that during football games – I knew I should have gone to more than one game.) Curiously, my husband (also a Nuclear Engineer in case you missed it the other three hundred times I mentioned it in previous blogs) was never subjected to these exams. That is one of the problems with marrying a Nuclear Engineer; there’s constant competition and comparison (but it is usually over who is the funniest, not over who got psychologically evaluated the most). I am sure I took those exams at least three times (for three different interviews) – I hope they don’t compare my answers to my answers to my answers.

Some of the questions included: Would you like the work of a florist?, Would you like the work of a librarian? (Should I have been taking a hint that the nuclear industry wasn’t a viable employment option?), Would you like the work of a park ranger? (I don’t have anything against park rangers, but I personally don’t like bugs and I couldn’t identify poison ivy if it were growing up my leg – don’t tell my Girl Scouts, though, they think I know everything.). Other questions included: Do you like tall women? (I myself am tall, so I always wondered if they meant did I like myself?), Do you like mannish women? (My husband asked me if it was intended to mean women from the Isle of Man? – of course not, then it would be Manx women.) How are the answers to any of these questions going to help determine if I am a suitable candidate for employment as a Nuclear Engineer?

The hardest question for me was: Who was the better president – George Washington or Abraham Lincoln? Seriously, does everything have to be a competition? If I had to choose, well, let’s see, Lincoln had that very cool beard and hat. And Washington had that whole cherry tree, telling the truth thing. Sure, one of them freed the slaves and one of them helped defeat the British and won independence for our country, but neither one of them was an advocate for nuclear power, so how could I possibly choose between the two of them? (Thinking back, I probably gave a different answer every time I took the exam.)

The only question on those exams that I truly understood was the one about whistling. It asked, “Do you like to whistle while you work?” If I were living with Snow White and my six brothers and working in a coal mine, I might enjoy whistling, but normally I find whistling highly irritating (there’s probably something somebody could read into that). Recently, I heard a whistler and I blurted out my standard saying “Whistling is for psychopaths!” before I realized that it was the pastor’s wife who was whistling in the sanctuary prior to Wednesday evening orchestra rehearsal. That’s when I blurted out “Yikes!” (meaning UF didn’t prepare me for that situation either!)

At Girl Scout camp, I was assigned kitchen kapers (if you are not a Girl Scout and do not recognize that term, it is a cleverly designed word that sounds like fun, but actually means housework while you are at camp) which means I was in the kitchen making gelatin dessert (trust me, it wasn’t Jell-O brand) for 2540 Girl Scouts (or some number like that).  The kitchen supervisor, the camp leader, and two kitchen assistants were watching me stir the hot water into the gelatin powder (it was a serious lull in activity at that point).  They seemed mesmerized by the whisking action (really, they need to find hobbies, all of them).  The mindlessness of the activity reminded me of a scene in the movie Blue Sky where Tommy Lee Jones is sedated, foaming at the mouth and is lacing up leather wallets.  Upon seeing this, Jessica Lange’s character cries out, “He’s a Nuclear Engineer, #@!%$, and you have him making wallets!”  So, since my situation in the Girl Scout camp kitchen seemed pretty similar (except for the expletive deleted), I said, “I’m a Nuclear Engineer, and you have me making gelatin dessert.”  For some strange reason, the people who were watching me whisk gelatin dessert and hot water together didn’t laugh.  Maybe they didn’t hear me (yes, I’m sure that must have been it).

Later that same weekend, I was chaperoning my daughter’s youth symphony concert and one of the parents had remembered that my daughter and I had to leave a rehearsal early a few weeks previously for a Girl Scout event.  The event was a meeting with an a

Even a nuclear engineer can JELL-O

strophysicist (it is actually a series of meetings with female scientists and it is called, “She’s a Scientist??!”.  I have to say, as a female engineer, I’m offended because of the question marks.  Who thought that would be a positive message for young girls?  What’s the next series of meetings going to be called?  She’s a Voter??!).  The orchestra parent asked if my daughter had a good time or learned a lot from meeting the astrophysicist.  I replied that the event was okay, but since my husband and I are both Nuclear Engineers, meeting an astrophysicist really wasn’t that big of a deal.  As is usually the case when the words ‘Nuclear Engineer’ pop out of my mouth, the orchestra parent began to busy herself with something in her daughter’s violin case.  She didn’t ask me any additional questions.

Why do I continue to mention that my husband and I are Nuclear Engineers?  It’s not like we are walking around every day doing radiation dose calculations or shielding design.  Granted, my husband is very smart and my daughter inherited his intelligence, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t ordinary people.  We like to laugh together more than anything.  We’ve washed our clothes with sugar instead of laundry soap on vacation (they looked the same in the measured bag portions I brought on the trip and we didn’t stop to do a chemical analysis on them before we did laundry.)  I think Nuclear Engineering is just a part of my nature (“I’m naturally radioactive and so are you!” is what it said on the stickers that I used to hand out as a member of the American Nuclear Society at UF – maybe I need new stickers that say “I’m naturally a Nuclear Engineer and will always think of myself as such!” – then again, maybe that’s too long and uppity to put on a sticker!  I could put “I’m naturally a Nuclear Engineer and that’s why I dress this way”, but that seems a bit obvious.  Now come one, I’m not being stereotypical about engineers and the way they dress, I’m just making a single statement about my clothing choices – and perhaps those of my husband because I’m pretty sure he would want a sticker like mine.)

Well, I guess I don’t know why those words find their way into my conversations.  I bet they always will.  The same way I always say other things like: I’m from Miami.  I graduated from UF.  I’m the youngest of six kids.  I’m a wife, a mom, a Girl Scout leader, a tuba player, and oh yeah, a Nuclear Engineer.

It finally happened.  I never saw it coming.  Someone called me an ‘ex-Nuclear Engineer’.  I am not yet recovered from the horror of it all (maybe I’m being Punk’d.)  After mulling it over for a while (at least twenty minutes), I have decided that I don’t accept that title.  Although I attended the University of Florida BT (that’s Before Tebow), I think that my degree is still valid.  My official UF transcripts say that I received a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering (Nuclear Engineering).  (Yes, I do think it is funny that the Nuclear Engineering part is in parentheses, but that is the way it appears on the transcripts; I have always wondered if it was a secret).  As far as my diploma is concerned, I’ll always be a Nuclear Engineer.

Being a Nuclear Engineer has gotten me where I am today (well, not sitting in this chair, but you know what I mean).  I had an opportunity to work in the engineering field.  (I even got to walk around inside containment at a nuclear power plant that was in the final stages of construction in order to measure spray nozzle blockage– good times, yes, good times!)  I met and worked with other Nuclear Engineers.  I even married a Nuclear Engineer.  My husband and I understand each other (for the most part anyway, but phrases like “That’s pretty obtuse” and “I don’t get it” are spoken frequently at our house).  We have a basis for understanding each other; we share a common love for science and math.  We have a daughter-product (this is where one of those phrases I mentioned above would get used).  We are an actual nuclear family (I was fission for a laugh with that one).

I may have resigned my position at an engineering firm when my child was born over a decade ago, but I don’t believe that makes me an ex-Nuclear Engineer (I’ll admit the company I resigned from has since gone bankrupt, but it was viable when I left so I can’t be blamed for their demise, I hope).  Although, I don’t have a Nuclear Engineer’s paycheck, or a Nuclear Engineering job right now (at either a solvent or a bankrupt company), I will always be a Nuclear Engineer.  It says so on my diploma (but it might be a secret, so please don’t tell anyone else.)

The storm was a bust. We didn’t even get to set up a tower. We barely broke into the four coolers of iced Pepsi, bottled Starbuck’s coffee, Monster energy drinks, scores of bottled water and the bags of other “food” the engineers in training brought to sustain ourselves on what could have easily been a two-day soak fest. I can’t even tell if my new raincoat works. Not that it wasn’t raining or windy or dangerous conditions weren’t surrounding us. It’s just as far as these things go, you look forward to standing a foot of water — at least.

I’ve done this before. Once before. Last year I tagged along on the gang’s trip to set up in three towers in Tropical Storm Fay’s landfall on Marco Island. That was soggy and fun. The guys were so impressive. They even showed me how to heat up a can of chicken soup in the truck’s engine. (Hot soup on a rainy night IN THE MIDDLE OF A TROPICAL STORM, only an engineer.) But besides their culinary exploits it was amazing to watch these students. Their actions were swift, decisive, all based in knowledge not only from studies but real-world experience and they were having fun.

This time around was different. The students were still determined, intelligent and savvy. But there was more. There was passion. They wanted everyone to learn. This endeavor, after all, still lives at the University of Florida. But what most impressed me is what I’ve heard, Lord, even written more than two dozen times. “We offer real-world experience, an interdisciplinary education, communication is key.” I’ll bet you’d find each of these sentiments on every single College and University brochure in the U.S. But of course, you would. It’s important and necessary. But how in the world do you teach it? Hurricane hunting is one way.

Everything was a learning experience for the new guys and a teaching opportunity for the veterans. Whether a blown air-pump valve on the diesel engine (which we stopped three times on I-10 to fix… in the rain… in the wind… at night) or backing out the trucks and trailers of house dotted streets or reading the data to figure out where to set set up. They never stopped. They never complained, not even about driving to Pensacola from Gainesville and NOT setting up their towers. The real in-the-field-engineering never had a chance.

But I think that’s OK. Even as four F-250′s, three towing 6.500 pounds of what looks like a disassembled jungle gym, and soft, dry beds of the Hampton Inn called their names, there was still work to be done. All the gear had to be unloaded and brought into the rooms for safe keeping. The trucks had to be parked unobtrusively in the hotel parking lot. And then plans had to be made for the three-hour drive home tomorrow in a Tropical Storm (it’s still out there).

These guys are mechanics, electricians, computer geeks, philosophers, problem solvers, teachers and mentors. They are engineers.

To find out more about what these do http://fcmp.ce.ufl.edu/overview/overview.htm

Tropical Strom Fay, 2008

I’m not exactly sure what this blog will evolve into, but hopefully you’ll dig it. I can be sure it will have something to do with Gator Engineering.