Fiona's Letters TAFE Motor Mechanic Training Course for Girls Week Twelve Hi Everyone, It's about now that wearing overalls starts to become an advantage. The colder weather is upon us and it's not such a bad thing to wear a drill-cotton body bag all day! That and the wool socks keep the chill out. (Geeze, now I'm starting to sound like I should be having dinner at 5 in the afternoon). We're in a transitional stage right now. A few modules are finishing up and others are starting so we're doing a lot of electrical but all in the early or introductory stages of it. Last Monday, we started to look at the electrical system of the basic car - starting with the main power source, the battery. As part of the day's lessons, the teacher decided to show a couple of videos to explain how batteries originated and developed and are used in cars. In his introduction to the first video, he explained that it was presented by Peter Wherret, "the cross-dresser". This urged me to spontaneously laugh out loud at this totally irrelevant piece of information, it was so absurd. The teacher smiled and elaborated further on Peter's cross-dressing career thinking I was laughing with him, not AT him. Oh well, either way, it made me laugh while the rest of the class sat in stony silence. I did make me realise, though, that this once highly-regarded automotive expert and commentator had suddenly been dropped by the media like a hot rock just because he admitted to doing something pretty harmless in the comfort of his own home. Heaven forbid that someone should discover that women often wear trousers in public!! Hmmmm.............OK, I'm moving on :) We also started on the first aid section of the course. Unfortunately, it's not a full course, just the sections relevant to a workshop but it's a good refresher for me. The teacher is a mechanic and an SES officer so he's seen a few things over the years and there were plenty of stories to tell. Mostly involving gory details of accidents that could easily have been avoided if a little thought had gone into the events leading up to them. Here's a tip - never slice open a plastic bag with a stanley knife whilst holding the bag up against your body. Now, this is why boys should help their mothers more in the kitchen - they might learn not to cut themselves later on in life! This half of the course is supposed to be more practical since most of the theory has been covered. The drawback is that when they structured the lessons, they had 15 people in mind, not 3 or 6 on average. This means that the teachers are having to stretch out the subject matter and the day really drags on. We're due for a day trip to the NRMA depot at Rydalmere in the next week or two so that should get us out and about for one day at least! OK, behave and I'll catch you all again next week. Gotta go and get my pants ready for tomorrow!! Cheers! Fi xx ;) Go to first page - Index - Next page

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