January 13, 2014

Work is hard. The morning shift works differently than the swing shift. I work at Santa Cruz Nutritionals, a factory that makes gummy nutritional products. We call it candy, but the products are high end quality. I like it because it is physical, and I am not sitting down all day long; also, I get to do a lot of lifting. Talking about how the factory works is like a temple of God. I can't talk deeply about it because they own intellectual property rights.

At work I don’t cook the products in the kitchen, but I work production and packaging. One of the main thing that we do is put the product in boxes. There are many production lines in the factory. Each one is like a river to me. Some product are streams like waterfalls, and some candy goes up hill. Watching to pick out the bad product, especially when very few are bad, makes me drowsy. One of the shortest lines produces the SpongeBob Squarepants, Scooby Doo, and other snacks. A funny thing that happens occasionally is that the machine malfunctions, continuing to pull up product. At first I use to think that I was loading the hooper too slow, but the machine fills quickly. When it has too much candy in its storage, it explodes and candy falls all over the place.

I felt a little slow on Saturday. I was working a very fast line. One thing that was annoying is that a guy was not being flexible, adapting to the situation. I learned not to judge people because I was doing the same thing. At first I was working with a girl, and we worked it out that I would put half of the product in a box and she will put the other half in. Another sister joined us, and my half was not needed as much because there are not three halves. I had a kept on loading my half until I got a little frustrated. I went to work another place, trying to assess the situation. What can I do? I realized after the day of working that I kept to the pattern that we discussed for too long. I would have helped the two sister more if I had put both halves in the box. The two sisters were having a hard time with keeping up with the line, but they did not want my half. One thing that I learned in the family foundation class is that putting in your half does not work in a family. Both spouses in a family need to put their all. I did not think that this would turn out to be a parable, but it seems to have.

After work, Nathalia, my Brazilian sister, a foreign English student, asked if I wanted to go to the beach. Since she just bought a long board skateboard, I said that we should go skateboarding. I was a little confused what she does with the skateboard because she said that the only thing that she liked to do is walk with it. After skating with her, I realized that she meant that she only uses it for transportation. We went to Pleasure Point. She took a lot of pictures and videos mainly of herself.

I was exhausted because I woke up before three o' clock on Saturday. I realized that since I did the same thing today; I think that my body is used to getting six hours of sleep because I usually go to sleep after midnight, waking up about seven.

I was bummed because Nathalia got sand all over her new skateboard's grip tape, and the grip tape was clear. She was hoping that it would rain, saying that she might put it out so it would get washed. I thought that would mess up her new long board, but she denied my assumption. Since she was not cleaning her skateboard Sunday, I cleaned her grip tape, since I felt bad, taking her to the beach on her first walk with her skateboard. I swept a lot of it off with a broom, but there was still a little sand on it. I showed her how I cleaned it, and she was satisfied.

When we were walking home with our skateboards from Pleasure Point, we ran into the Bishop of the ward that she attended last Sunday. He was on a jog, and his name is Greg Madsen. He randomly started pushing her a long as he ran, and I was surprised when she said that she enjoyed it. I think that girls like their space, and would think that is creepy. Bishop Madsen has a couple daughters, so I trusted that he knew what he was doing.