Life in ASP Land

We are heading into week four of an eight week program. It has flown by. If I didn't say so earlier, I run around four different centers and try to help out with troublesome projects and problems. Between the 4 centers there are probably 30-35 projects going on at a time. Thankfully the staffs are amazing and they get some amazing group leaders so I don't get called in for my opinion on much.

But a few things do come my way. I should first comment that I'm operating way over my head. The kind of work and the kind of houses ASP deals with are, for the most part, outside of my experience. But I'm catching on quickly. My current headache is an old house that started out with two rooms but has been added onto at every side. The additions are using modern construction and on a good foundation. The old center is not -- it has logs for floor joists, most of which are rotten, and it has sunk a few inches below the additions. We now have four weeks to tear out the logs and build a new wall-supporting floor without letting the structure fall apart in the process. Fun fun...

At the beginning of the summer, I looked at this sort of project with dread. Now though I'm starting to come around a bit. I know how to do this in a theoretical sense. It's just a series of steps with minor modifications along the way. It's easy to be overwhelmed, but I just have to look at it one peice at a time.

I think this is a great experience for me as I head towards medical school. I will often (I suspect) be required to dive into things with only a theoretical understanding and work through it methodically. This is a good opportunity to get used to dealing with that kind of pressure before it really matters. Breaking a big problem into manageable chunks isn't something I'm very good at, but I'm learning.

I should also take a moment to say that my fellow staffers here (at ASP in general) are amazing.