Hello! I'm Columbia, your local Engineering Trans Girl! I love all things electrical and mechanichal (Especially when it comes to Aerospace and Propulsion related subjects). This website is dedicated to my personal blogs and projects I hope I can share through the internet the old-school way. If you like my content or have any questions, feel free to contact me through my site email below!
Email: columbiasthoughts@gmail.com
Hilo guys! (No, "Hilo" is not a typo") So here I am updating this blog once again! I am happy to announce that I have a job and home now! it all started when I got off my flight and two days later I got an offer letter from the company for 37.73/hr with a 15k bonus! Like holy shit!, I can finally breath a little. The company said they wanted me in Colorado that Friday. (it was Thursday so I had three days to get there) So in the course of a single night I packed what was left of my shit and booked it to Colorado.
The drive was long as fuck but I had alot of fun and even met with my mom halfway there which I guess is nice (She doesn't know I'm trans and is incredibly transphobic) Once I had arrived on a Thurday I had more than enough time to get ready for Friday. I booked the hotel for Thursday and chilled out doing the drug test and looking for a house.
I was looking for houses all weekend through the convention websites like Zillow and apartments.com but was met by fucking sky high rent prices. This place is like a mid-western version of California. I even got fucking stood-up by a realator when I scheduled a tour for an aprtment in the next town over. Through desperation I was looking for roomates to cut the cost but unfortunately due to my location being a relatively small town I was out of options. Eventually I found through some searching on craigslist a place with roomates an hour away from work (Yeah, fuck thats a long drive but it was like $670.00 a month&341; I eventually got there the next day.
I was pleased that it was REALLY fucking nice neighborhood and house. The roomies were cool to: One is an instrument technician that will talk your ear off. Another is a logistics guy for some random company not too far away. The last one is the most interesting of all, he is a guy that lost both his legs and most of his fingers but made his own prostetic legs and now does it for a living; Talk about cool!
My first day of work was this Monday. I went into orientation and then met the shop. Most of them were cool and way more fucking knowledgable in this shit than I am. I thought I was a decent electrician on my boat but now I feel as dumb as a box of rocks. I have never learned about instrumental equipment while in school or out in the fleet so I was pretty lost. The last thing I want is to be fired for being shit at my job. Thankfully through the week the guys in the shop were willing to teach me and were overall really fucking awesome. The week ended off in a cookout in the shop and the food was really fucking awesome.
My biggest worry at the moment is my weird depression/isolation cycles and dyphoria getting me fucked up. I have no one now that I am out of the navy that actually cares anymore. If anything happens, no one will call to talk or ask me if I am allright. I have no friends or support network that cares for my well-being. I am already feeling my dysphoria and cycles edging at the back of my mind and it worries mne that it will get worse. I have already had thoughts of cutting again which isn't good. I have kicked that habit months ago but I feel like I am only a cycle or trigger away.
Hey again internet, I am once again updating this blog as promised... bruh. Who the fuck even reads this shit anyways? So on Friday I went throguh another interview and so far it has been my only job I have applied for that has other candidates. I did really really well with the questions and improvised soundly when I had to. I finally got out of that old ladies house; To be frank, her house was INFESTED with bugs [mostly roaches]. My mother got me a hotel that night to allow me to get sleep before the company in Colorado flew me out.
The flight went well and I got super fucking lucky with the car rental; I am 20 so apparently you cannot rent a car to people under 21 [What the fuck is being an adult at 18 even for then?] but the lady broke the rules after enough begging from me and eventually gave me the keys to the car I rented. When I got to where I was going, the area wasn't bad at all and in fact it reminded me of my former home in South Dakota but just a tad mor developed.
The factory that I had applied to and was going to interview at and tour was auctually right accross the street. Come the next day, I met the supervisor of the plant and he showed me all the nooks and crannies of the plant. I am absolutely in love with the place! It has all the type of machinery that I am used to and love to fix plus some. The plant however was alot more solid state than I was expecting which they said they would train me on which Is another thing to remark on; They constantly send people to school to give them more training on the systems in plant weather that be PLCs or Boilers! After all of this, the plant supervisor had me take a test...Fuck. I haven't learned half of the shit they were talking about in that damned thing. After about 2 hours of stretching my brain in every which way imaginable I completed the test. Consider me humbled.
We talked about pay and there I was in my head thinking, "If I can't get paid at leat 35 an hour here, I can't accept the offer. This man says, "Yeah, we'll probably start you off at 37 and hour and from there we will see if you are more qualified to give you a raise. After that statement my soul left my body. Bro, I want this job so fucking BAD. Over lunch he told me the job offer will be written up and emailed to me today.
On my flight back home it occured to me I am still homeless. While it was nice to stay in all of these hotels, I can't aucutally afford one. I have no place to go to once I get back... I tried getting onto base with my CAC card and just ended up getting it taken away and I was turned around. I ended up sleeping in my old barracks parking garage. At the moment I just got done at an interview here in Norfolk and just completed an Amazon Interview this morning. It's 1557 EST and still don't have that job offer they promised yesterday so I am growing nervous. I am probably going to sleep in that parking garage again tonight. Thank god I still have that parking permit sticker. I think I will go purchase a sleeping mat for my car after I get off here. I am just waiting for my phone to charge to %100.
Hey Internet... Welp, a few days ago around 8 o'clock at night I was in my barracks scrolling through my work email (Especially my Junk) when I found an email from my adiministrative division with an attatchment. "Weird", I thought to myself as I clicked it. Inside I found my DD214 (document in the military essentially stating that you served and are now discharged) stating I was discharged the day before I read the email. Prior to this, I have recieved no warning, communication or advanced notice that this was happening. Prior to this I was previously sent to a temporary command while my other ship was out at sea. They were supposed to come back into port this weekend and then from there give me a date about a week or two in advance.
For context, in the military when getting discharged or seperated you are supposed to receive notice at the very least 10 days in advance of your seperation date (Known informaly as the 10 day letter) So Essentially, I got fucked in the ass due to me still being in the process of interviewing for jobs and having no shelter for me to stay at. I had to literally pack my seabags that very night and be gone the next morning. In the process of all this bullshitery I was CONVINCED that this had to be a mistake: so once I finally got in contact with my chain of command they confirmed that, yes, you're seperated.
"Sorry it turned out the way it did, good luck", my fucking chief said. At this point I am distraught because over the course of a night I am literally fucking homeless and unemployed. I managed to claw my way onto base yesterday and get my official paperwork. It took every ounce of my will not to chew the fuck out of the Admin officer. Once off my boat I checked out of my apartment that the Navy provided me and since I was two days past my seperation date I owed fucking rent to this place(around 480 dollars!). Shit just keeps piling up; for the moment I will just ignore the bill until I can get on my feet because I literally have no other fucking option.
Thankfully, I have really close friends I have met in the area through the local trans groups; most of them were more than happy to provide me with a temporary place to stay. At the moment, a nice elderly lady is letting me stay at her place for the week (I promised them it would only be for a week because I know I can get a job in that time). At the moment of writing this entry, I have an interview today for indiana as a generator tech and have a company in colorado flying me out for an interview and factory tour this weekend.
Wish me luck I guess, I'm going to remain positive and faithful that everything will turn out fine and I will be employed by the end of the week. I will probably update the next monday or tuesday depending on the circumstances at the time.
Hello Internet! I am Columbia, a trans girl that loves all things engineering! So I guess I should start off on the fact that I am currently transitioning out of the navy. To make a Long story short, dysphoria made me sad, I tried to get help, Navy basically said, "LOL get the fuck out of here tranny" so now I am here in my last few weeks of the Navy trying to find a job. Honestly, since I am an Electricians Mate, finding jobs hasn't been too big of an issue, Especially good paying ones. I have a bad problem when it comes to change though. I don't want to leave the city I am stationed in because of the community I have found which I feel is unlike anything I have ever found but then again, I said that about my last duty station. Having my egg crack here and finding the support group and the best friends that stemmed from it has been amazing. Obviously the Navy doesn't exactly help with my social life or transition here so I made due with what I had; now that I am getting away from the navy, If I had a decent oppurtunity at staying here things would only get better but this place I think is crowded with people in posistions and circumstances just like me. Yes, I could take a shit-ass electrican job here and live paycheck by paycheck but how would I financially manage to transition and more importantly estrogen. I would be shooting myself in the foot. Some things in life I guess require saying goodbye to. Womp Womp... Anyways, on the subject of this website itself, I plan on having either a forum or a chatroom, an engineering space where I either post projects of either my greatest repairs or my coolest creations! Also, expect the site to be updated for the next two to three months to be updated bi-weekly (Especially considering that my HTML skills will be constantly improving) . So yeah, theres my first blog post! I hope yall enjoy!