be mine

Here’s a bit of my story: I’m a recently graduated elementary school teacher who has dreams of taking a masters degree in rehab medicine and traveling lots... and unfortunately those are expensive habits.

So when I came back to my hometown from backpacking Greece last year I was offered a job at a copper mine- a place I worked at to put myself through my bachelor degree. And since I’m a sellout... i mean, so I can raise funds to follow my dreams I turned into elementary school teacher turned short-time miner.



That’s right: haul trucks, excavators, turbochargers, and transmissions. A far cry from little innocent grade one students putting apples on my desk… but ya know what? I like it.



But lets clarify something first: I’m fairly girly.

I’m a 24 year old girly girl that was a ballerina from age 5-17, routinely looked like a bottle of Pepto Bismol, and currently enjoys makeup, shopping and clothes… a little more than what would be considered healthy. When I’m not in coveralls I can be found in a dress, or some sort of other sparkly or (self proclaimed) stylin’ apparel.

So when I started my job at the mine at age 17, I was handed a pair of too-large coveralls with “Lauren” elegantly scrawled across the pocket, and directed to climb in an excavator engine and scrape the grease out so it could be welded. My jaw dropped a little.




But, as in any story a little magic happened... Just about the time that one of the older men came up to me and told me that he didn’t think I should be there because I was a smaller girl, and there was no place for me on the shop floor. I got my sh*t together.

I don’t care what anyone says, when you’re told you can’t do something, you adjust your pink hard hat, make sure your hair looks damn good, dive into the grease, and prove the h*ll out of yourself.



So, I did. I worked on the shop floor as a labourer for 3 summers, then as a shipper-receiver in the warehouse for 2 more years. Now I am the Assistant Maintenance Planner, and plan component change-outs such as the engine that I was inside scraping grease off of in my first day here.

The funniest think out of the process here is how much I love it. And those grumpy old men? They turned out to be some of my best friends and ‘second dad’s’ now.

And in the bonus round, I get to enjoy this beautiful setting of a mine in the mountains.



The point of this story, you ask? Simply to be able to look back in this little online ‘diary’ and remember this time, and to share some of the photos I took this week, of course.



but really I guess it comes down to this:

As I see it, life’s about getting dirty, diving in, and learning all you can while you’re here.