Today was the beginning of the technical training. After being introduced to the people we would be working with, we were given a rundown of what we'd be doing here in Redlands and in our destination countries. It looks as though my schedule will be very full for the next seven weeks. The actual technical stuff we did today was almost trivial. Dave Pedersen walked us trough pulling our systems apart, recording the serial numbers and reassmbling everything. Since it was something both Josh and I have a lot of experience in, it was something we spent an entire afternoon on when either of us could easily have done it in about half an hour. However, I do understand the reasons for going through the exercise in a group and making sure everybody did everything right. Judging from todays experiences, I believe this summer will be an opportunity for me to grow in both patience and tollerance. One of the things I noticed today is how cool a lot of the staff are. Meeting someone in person gives you an impression of someone that you can't get via email correspondence. Knowing what their experience, interests, etc. would have been helpful for me, I think, in alleviating some frustration when I didn't get the answers I was looking for in the preparation period because it's harder to get upset with a person than with an organization or a name on the screen.
This morning began a fun-filled day of adventure with our tour guide Jonathan. He very quickly and impatiently showed us why we all should have done our homework, though none of us had time. Lessons 8 and 9 which he wrote turned out to be pretty important and we spent most of the day just going over what was already covered in there and troubleshooting his custom installation (which is very cool). Jonathan gave us a much more detailed picture of how everything worked. By the end of the day we had PPP over SSH over PPP working properly, allowing secure client access. The day could have been more productive had we all been better prepared, but the timing of the lessons was very poor, especially since they were by far the most difficult.
The day started out with chapel and the president's presentation of his visits to missionaries around Indonesia. Our short-term missionary classes began today and consisted mostly of an introduction to MAF. It's fun to get to know some of the other people going out on the field, but much of it seems irrelevant because the program is geared toward people going out for a year or more and we're only out for 5 weeks. Mari gave a presentation in the afternoon about documentation. She explained why it was so important, especially for those who are not technical people. We went over the existing documenation for the MAFnet-II beta and noted what needed to be changed in light of yesterday's discoveries. The process for reporting documentation changes was also communicated (send mail to JP who will then send it out on an errata mailing list).
This morning consisted of orientation and cross-cultural training. First, we were told the way mail and bills are handled. It didn't really apply to us interns because we're only in country for 5 weeks. The focus later in the morning was on food handling. No new information was introduced and I felt the time could have been better spent in the lab. In the afternoon, JP had us review our lessons and schedule in country. He talked a while about training the admin and what will go into that. Then for a couple hours in the evening we just played around with the servers, gettin to know them. This period was good for me because I was able to grasp more of an understanding of how the system worked. Also, Josh wasn't there so I was able to do everything myself which was the only way I could make sure I knew what I was doing.